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PSYCHOLOGY 


Lectures*in-Print 


The People’s Institute 
“Tectures-in-Print”? Sertes 





PSYCHOLOGY 

by Everett Dean Martin $3.00 
BEHAVIORISM 

by John B. Watson $3.00 


INFLUENCING HUMAN BEHAVIOR 
by H. A. Overstreet $3.00 


INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
by Charles S. Myers $2.50 


THE MEANING OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION 
by Everett Dean Martin $3.00 


MODERN SCIENCE AND PEOPLE’S HEALTH 
Edited by Benjamin C. Gruenberg $2.50 


Other Volumes in Preparation 





W-W+ NORTON & COMPANY, INC. 
70 Fifth Avenue New York 


PSYCHOLOGY 


What It Has to Teach You About 
Yourself and Your World 


By ‘i if 
EVERETT DEAN MARTIN 


Author of 
“The Behavior of Crowds,’ “The Mystery of Religion” 





NEW YORK 
W -W:-NORTON & COMPANY, INC. 
Publishers 


Copyright 
The People’s Institute Publishing 
Oompany, Inc., 1924. 


Printed in the United States of America 


CONTENTS 


eee nr ny 


Lecture Page 
I. What Psychology really is—Its Uses and Abuses. 1 
II. Psychology and Physiology—A Study of Reactions. 15 
III. Psychology and Philosophy—The Place of William 
PAIES er te eer te east ar an et ans em Sota Sree MW NOR Maa Obes 29 
IV. Psycho-analysis—What Freud and his Followers 
have donetor Psychology.) arson inna 45 
V. What Psychologists think about Consciousness. ..... 61 
Mtge) bemeatalityon bia Ditseae eur atten eyo’, erate "5 
VII. Human Nature and the Problems of Instinct...... 89 
Wal ite Man andes BMmOuonseae ewes enh, eh eae tOs 
Xe Lecture on How uwevbbink Geel 117 
X. The Value of the Fictions We invent about Our- 
Selvesa ivan ulmi nn chan magia gta b shane 133 
XI. The Unconscious and its Influence upon Human 
Beha Viorica cra. ie geen eins ide caer a UNe 147 
XII. The Significance of the Intelligence Tests......... 161 
XII. Is therea Group Mind ? What governs the Behavior 
OReople an SOClety dearer e nate ce erbine Hanoi [ait 175 


XIV. The Psychology of Propaganda and Public Opinion. 191 
MN eehhe Psycholopy Of Religionwy et uwiee peta. oh tacts 207 
Ney em he bsycholovy of Politica wert wa ty ak cen oon 
XVII. Are there Psychological differences of Race?...... 237 
Pavel liwebchicsiin: thei Licht) of Rsychologysa. wots ek 251 
XIX. Behaviorism. — The Latest and Most Debated 
Developmentsns ature perry na tor eam renee 267 
XX. How much Progress can Human Nature Stand?.... 283 


_ Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/osychologywhatitOOmart_0O 


LECTURE I 
What Psychology really is—Its Uses and Abuses. 










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WHAT PSYCHOLOGY REALLY IS: 


Its Uses and Abuses. 


Wt is Psychology? We are deeply interested in this question and 

correctly so. The psychological point of view is today making 
changes in the world’s thinking which are perhaps as great as were those 
which resulted from Darwin’s work in the nineteenth century. Wherever 
human behavior of any sort takes place there is a psychological fact. Ina 
sense, we may say that psychology is the attempt to take a scientific view 
of human behavior. Professor McDougall says, “The aim of psychology 
is to render our knowledge of human nature more exact and systematic 
in order that we may control ourselves more wisely and influence our 
fellow-men more effectively.” This would not be a complete definition 
of psychology because psychologists also study the behavior of animals. 
But we are, in this course interested in understanding human nature, and 
we wish to know in what way psychology can be of help to us. 

We all have a sort of amateur psychology derived from common 
sense and from experience. We have certain ways of “sizing people up.” 
We judge pretty quickly whether we would like to have an individual for 
our friend; whether we would trust him; and whether he has a striking 
or capable personality. We are always predicting what so-and-so would 
do or say under certain circumstances. And we have learned that certain 
things about ourselves will interest other people; that some things please 
them, or perhaps make them angry. We see that certain habits of our 
neighbors or of ourselves are good or bad. We do not hesitate to say 
that certain people are queer or that certain movements like mobs are 
“ hysterical.” Moreover, we have each some sort of an idea about himself. 
We say that we like music or honesty or John Smith; or as a journalist 
once said to me, “I hate children and tripe and Democrats.” 

Probably this journalist did not realize that he was making a 
psychological statement; but he was. For all these things are in a crude 
way psychological judgments. To be sure, they are not what can be 
called scientific judgments, for they are often prejudiced and based on 
insufficient observation, and so often erroneous. The journalist may be 
correct in stating his dislikes. He may be giving a fairly good picture of 
certain aspects of his character, but he probably cannot say why he has 
these prejudices and dislikes. To learn why would require a more careful 
analysis than we are ordinarily able to make either of ourselves or of our 
neighbors, 


Fictitious Views of Human Nature. 

It is for the lack of such careful and technical analysis that we are 
so often mistaken about human nature. For instance, a great many people 
since the war are disillusioned or are trying desperately to save their faith 
and social ideals. Before 1914 many of these people had certain 
humanitarian beliefs. They accepted the doctrine that man was naturally 
good and reasonable—if only he were not kept down by the evil 
environment. 

Now we see people behaving in ways that surprise and startle us. 
Many of us do not know what to think. Some become cynical; others 
feel that they have lost their ideals. Many feel that civilization is bankrupt, 


Y4 


What most of us forget is that our older prevailing ideas of human 
nature were, for the most part, matters of dogmas and creeds, inherited 
from an age which had not yet learned to study human nature scientifically. 
Most of our political, religious, social, economic, and ethical theories 
are based upon old fashioned fictions about mankind. Somebody, a 
philosopher, let us say, who knew much about books and abstract ideas, 
sat in his den and constructed in thought an imaginary man. About this 
man he held various made-in-advance notions, usually devised to suit the 
purpose of his particular philosophical system. 


These notions, to be sure, were well intended. Often they represented 
the philosopher’s rebellion against what he regarded as medieval super- 
stition. He had been taught that man was a “sinner; that his nature 
was corrupt and prone to evil. The philosopher had seen that the appli- 
cation of reason to the facts of nature was greatly revolutionizing the old 
medieval picture of the world about us. And so he concluded that a like 
revolution of our view of human nature was in store. In this he was 
probably correct. But what he often did was merely to say that whereas 
medieval thinkers had said that human nature was all bad, modern knowl- 
edge must declare it to be naturally good. This is what Rousseau did. 
Therefore he said in substance that man is essentially reasonable and that 
given a chance mankind would find happiness in a rational way. Immanuel 
Kant, the great German philosopher who lived at the close of the 18th 
century, also held the view that man was essentially rational and that the 
laws of his reason were universal, applying even to divine beings. The 
same rationalistic view of human nature was rather typical of our older 
thinkers. It occurs in Plato and Aristotle. Among modern thinkers it 
has been a favorite doctrine of the older liberalism and is a presupposition 
held by many Marxian Socialists. Consequently, most of our political 
and social theories are based upon views of human nature which at best 
were pure assumptions and guess work. Where did our older thinkers 
get this view? ‘They did not go out and study people. In fact, with all 
their learning they did not know half as much about people and what they 
think and do, as you and I know. They simply imagined an ideal man and 
made him the type of us all. It never occurred to them to try to learn 
whether this imaginary man really existed. Their theories only required a 
useful, logical fiction. This fiction became the norm, the ideal, about which 
most modern political and social theories were spun. And when people 
later found that we are not really that sort of beings they were inclined 
either to condemn human nature as a whole or fear for the future of 
civilization. 

Perhaps it is not necessary to do either of these things. Perhaps we 
should find, after more careful study, that human nature is variable in 
some respects and that basically it is neither good nor bad, or is perhaps 
both, and that with better understanding and control, and only so, may it 
achieve something. 

While most of us have been generalizing and have been repeating 
certain old dogmas about human nature, scholars have gone to work, 
gathering slowly through carefully controlled experiments in laboratories 
and clinics a considerable body of knowledge. Roughly, we may say that 
the first scientific experimental study of human nature began about 100 


3 


years ago with the work of a German scholar named Weber. Since that 
time innumerable experiments have been made under all sorts of conditions 
and these experiments have been subjected to much analysis and discus- 
sion so that at present enough facts have been gathered to give us what 
is on the whole a very important science. 


It is, of course, impossible for the average student of this course to 
go into a psychological laboratory or clinic. Perhaps that is not necessary 
if our purpose is to know in general what has been achieved in these places 
and what is the meaning for us of these one hundred years of scientific 
study. In any event, I hope we may make our own the spirit of this new 
Science ; and it is possible that such a view of ourselves will be as subversive 
to old popular notions as we have found a similar scientific view of the 
world to be in its revolutionizing effect upon superstitions about nature. 
To the common sense observer, the sun goes about the earth in 24 hours. 
Science tells us that in fact the earth goes about the sun once in 12 months 
and that the apparent daily circle of the sun is due to the turning of the 
earth on its axis. Likewise, common sense tells us that every species 
begets its own like; yet science tells us that given time enough species 
change, and that all our present varied forms of living organisms have 
a common ancestor. It is possible that science—which is simply good 
judgment and careful observation applied under conditions that any 
intelligent person can duplicate and criticize—will cause us to make as 
great changes in regard to our common sense ideas about ourselves and 
about our neighbors as it has caused us to make about our world. 

I think it will do so, and that it is even now making over all our social 
science. And we need such knowledge badly. It is inevitable that the 
scientific spirit once it began reorganizing our knowledge about our earth 
should finally reach and reorganize our knowledge of ourselves. The time 
has already come when we can live effectively only when we see ourselves 
in the light of the knowledge which has done more than anything else to 
create for us this modern world in which we live. 


The Importance of Psychology. 


We need a scientific view of human nature and I wish to emphasise 
as strongly as possible what it means to us to have such a view. If we 
are to live decently we must adapt ourselves to an environment which is 
radically different from that of older generations; an environment which 
has become what it is because men have learned to apply to its control 
principles of cause and effect. To live in such a world we must learn 
new habits, new judgments about ourselves and about our neighbors; new 
ideas of the values of experience and the possibilities of human achieve- 
ment. We must learn to control human behavior. We must learn how 
to make ourselves effective. We can no longer live in this new environ- 
ment and use the rule of thumb methods of control which were possible 
in a pre-scientific age. Sociologically we must know if the various 
tendencies and social movements in which we are asked to participate are 
conducive to human happiness and effectiveness. We must know what 
human types these various movements are encouraging. We must know 
how many of our human traits can be modified by education and how 
many of them are hereditary and changeless so that we may spend our 
energies along the lines where advance is possible. We need some more 
accurate way of estimating the capacities of ourselves and other people 


4 


so that we can get the right man into the right place. We need very much 
such knowledge of human nature as will enable us best to educate the 
young. Moreover, a most valuable kind of knowledge for each of us 
would be that which would reveal us to ourselves; which would give us 
the inner hidden motive of our actions and our professions so that we 
should not be tricked by our unconscious emotions and impulses; so that 
our behavior and our thinking might be relevant to the situations in which 
we find ourselves; so that we should not waste our energies in ineffective 
gestures the function of which is often merely to bolster up our unconscious 
childish egoism. We so commonly deceive ourselves in these respects that 
it seems to me that if psychology should do nothing more than show us 
the true meaning of our own behavior, it might lead us to a richer and more 
beautiful common life. 


Psychology Is Not A “ Gospel.” 


I do not wish to promise too much in the name of psychology. 
Certainly there are very many questions which it cannot answer. It 1s 
not a gospel. And we should not look to it to give us magic formulae 
by which all the problems of life may be miraculously solved. But it is 
of very great importance that as many persons as possible try to take a 
scientific view of human nature and we may at least say that psy- 
chology may yet give us a method which with patience and labor may, 
in time, give us a degree of freedom and mastery over ourselves and over 
the forces of our environment such as men have never enjoyed. Certainly 
no one is nor can be free until he is free from within. The educational 
value of psychology is great. From the time of Socrates until now it has 
generally been recognized that the most important aim of knowledge is to 
“know thyself.” Education is not merely the accumulation of information. 
It is the achievement of new mental habits. Psychology ought to help 
us achieve such habits and to think differently about many things, and as 
we come to think differently we really become new beings. We shall see 
that psychology has many branches and covers a wide range of subjects. 
It has already amassed so much material that probably no one individual 
can master it all. Certainly, therefore, we cannot in a course like this, do 
more than get a general outline of this science. But we can gain an 
acquaintance with the significant literature on the subject. We can get a 
knowledge of psychological methods and of the problems which are most 
important. And we can learn what it means to think about our human 
behavior dispassionately and carefully, and without prejudice. 


Much that is called psychology today is mis-named.. It is neither 
psychology nor science. Perhaps no word is more abused. There are 
people going about the country organizing classes or advertising so-called 
“self-improvement” courses all in the name of psychology. Many of 
these self-styled psychologists are merely capitalizing public credulity and 
are taking advantage of what is often an honest desire to know something 
about psychology. Most of the stuff that is being popularized in the 
name of this science is about on the level of the old-fashioned fake patent 
medicines. The so-called information that is often sold is misinformation. 
Blatantly ignorant, extravagant in its claims, it is for the most part a 
clever and insincere scheme for getting money from the gullible. 


Students should be warned against the so-called “ psychology ” which 
is nothing but an attempt to justify with half understood phrases cheap 


5 


optimism or popular stiperstitions. You should be on your guard against 
any book, magazine or lecture, alleged to be psychological, the author of 
which wallows in sweet phrases or spells such words as “ Mind,” “ Con- 
scious,” “ Sub-Conscious,” “ Truth,” “ The Good,” and so on, with Capital 
Letters. 

Psychology has nothing to do with things like phrenology or spiritism 
or faith-healing or personal improvement by magic. There are no spooks 
in psychology. | 

Always, when a new science is being developed, many people seize 
upon an imitation of the real article to gain imagined support for all 
unscientific beliefs. The student should especially be warned against those 
who confuse psychology with metaphysics; against those who would treat 
what they call the sub-conscious as a sort of back stairs through which 
one may sneak up to supermundane and mysterious things. Beware also 
of those who speak of “ psychic phenomena ”’ as if psychology were occult 
and mysterious. And finally let us not confuse psychology with that 
cult of self-delusion in which half educated people think that if they can 
get in tune with the Infinite showers of blessings, of health, wealth, and 
social prestige will rain down on their heads. 


Human life, all life, for that matter, is, of course, a process which 
perhaps no science can fathom, and I have no wish to make the claim 
that we are able to find logical equivalents for the realities of life. But, 
so far as facts are reducible to a scientific system and can be seen in the 
light of cause and effect, we should make every effort to organize our 
knowledge in this way. However great mysteries may exist, there must 
be no mysteries in science. Things are not so just because of some senti- 
mental wish on our part that they be so. The difference between real 
psychology and the pseudo-science that is advertised in its name comes 
near to being a factor of intellectual honesty. Science is simply a careful 
study of facts together with their causes and laws. And this is as true of 
the science of human behavior, if it is going to be a science at all, as it is 
of any other science. To modern psychology the human being is a purely 
natural phenomenon. He has, for purposes of our study, at least, to be 
regarded as a living organism, different in degree but not in kind from 
animals. Psychology does not deal with some mysterious entity called 
“The Soul” or “ Mind” or “ Consciousness.” It is the science which 
deals with the ways in which the human animal reacts to the situations of 
its environment. Hence, psychology is as truly a natural science and aims 
to keep as strictly to the natural history point of view as do physiology 
and biology. 

The mind, the soul, the spirit, consciousness, are all very interesting 
subjects for metaphysical speculation. But as students of psychology, we 
are not primarily interested in them. We are not even interested in the 
problem as to how mind is related to the body. This may appear very 
strange and paradoxical to the beginner. He may say, “What then 1s 
psychology about, if it is not about these things?” I think he will find 
that there is quite enough for psychology to be about even without these 
old metaphysical interests. All these things are merely philosophical 
assumptions. We must remember that many ancient and medieval thinkers 
imagined that spirit and body were two distinct things and that it is largely 
through popular theological instruction that this old division has survived 


6 


in the minds of most of us. For purposes of psychological study it is 
not necessary to cut human nature up in this way. In fact, it is unwise; 
first, because those who do this give us a very artificial notion of mankind ; 
and having in thought separated body and spirit are never quite able to 
get them together again. This way of thinking always suggests to me the 
story of the Cheshire Cat in “Alice in Wonderland.” You will remember 
that the cat appears and grins at Alice and then vanishes, leaving the grin 
behind. Now, of course, if one wishes to view this matter logically, he 
may say that cat and grin stand for two different “ concepts” and that in 
order to keep these concepts “ pure” he must not confuse them. There- 
fore, in pure cat there can be no grin, and in pure grin there can be no cat. 
Then, having separated the cat and the grin this way, you may, if you 
choose, wonder how in the world two such beings ever got together. Of 
course, if you take the grinning cat as a single fact and simply regard 
grinning as one of the things which cats in wonderland might do, you 
might be puzzled at the cat grinning but you are not puzzled over the 
philosophical problem of reconciling mutually exclusive concepts. If the 
cat wants to leave the grin behind, let it do so. That is no reason why the 
philosopher should separate the two. Now, very much thinking about 
human nature in times past has been what I call cat-grin philosophy. Back 
of this, of course, is a philosophical trick of imaging that the body and 
its activities belong to two irreconcilable worlds. 


Again, when we study a human being we find that in studying his 
mental life we are always studying, in some way, his behavior. We shall 
find that we are really concerned about bodily movements and feelings 
and various responses to environment. We shall also be studying the 
problem as to how past experiences modify present behavior; and I think 
we shall see that all human experience comes down at least to some sort 
of behavior, either actual or potential. Some people will doubtless ask, 
“Isn't this a very materialistic point of view?” I do not think so. 
Materialism is a metaphysical theory and is, therefore, as far from our 
scientific interest as is spiritualism. So far as the psychologist is con- 
cerned the ultimate reality of the whole universe may be either spirit or 
matter. But our concern is to study human behavior, and when we have 
learned how it proceeds, we may if we choose leave psychology behind and 
study something else. At present all we need to do is see that human 
behavior is a fact and try to understand that fact as best we can. 

Perhaps I should say that we are concerned with human behavior 
and experience. Personally I can see no objection to adding experience, 
but experience is often thought of as something passive, mysterious, and 
subjective. Man is an active being, concerned about relating himself to 
his world. Perhaps in studying his activity we may be able to learn some- 
thing also about experience so far as the latter has scientific significance. 


I wish to make this point clear: Psychology is, or strives to be, a 
natural science. The facts which it studies are chiefly human (sometimes 
animal) actions or responses to the environment in which living organisms 
find themselves and these actions are real events in the natural world, as 
real as trees, and stones, and oysters. And in explaining these facts, we 
must stay within the order of nature. We should be on our guard 
against inventing mysterious and occult reasons why things happen. We 
must try just as men try in other sciences to show how one observed fact is 


| 


7 


related to another. That is, we must assume that human behavior or, if 
you will, mental phenomena, have causes, and that at least for purposes 
of our study, these causes should be regarded as the situations and actions 
which uniformly accompany or precede certain facts of behavior. This 
is all we mean by cause—that given a set of circumstances a certain 
change will uniformly follow if the conditions are the same. 


Is Psychology Yet a True Science? 

Now have we in psychology a science in this sense? It cannot be 
said that psychology began as a science. Until recent times psychology was 
a branch of philosophy. Many older philosophers wrote about psychology. 
They were chiefly concerned about such questions as, “What is the nature 
of the soul?”’ “What are its attributes?” ‘‘ How is it related to the body, 
and how does it come to possess knowledge?” Indeed, much of the 
difficulty that people now have in taking a scientific view of psychology 
dates back to the old philosophical habit of regarding the mind or soul as 
something distinct from the life process itself and concerned primarily with 
knowing. It was knowing, not behaving, that concerned the older 
psychologists and they thought of knowledge as something outside the 
process of nature. Thus Aristotle, who defined the soul as the form of a 
natural body endowed with the capacity for life, thought of the soul as 
realized in “perfect knowledge” or in the process of “ contemplation.” 
He then proceeded to discuss such subjects as sensation, thought, imagina- 
tion, reason, ideas, and images. St. Thomas, in the 13th century, writes 
of “ Rationality, the essential form in man.” John Locke, in the 17th 
century, gives us the famous essay concerning human understanding. 
Locke’s psychology is concerned primarily with the origin and nature of 
ideas. Hume, at the beginning of the 18th century, though he also dis- 
cussed emotions or “ the passions ”’ is like Locke, chiefly interested in the 
“human understanding.” The same may be said of Mill, and in fact of 
most British and German psychologists down to the time of Herbert 
Spencer. I should add that the early 19th century German psychologists, 
Weber and Fechner who should perhaps be given credit for the beginning 
of modern éxperimental psychology, were still occupied with knowledge 
when they sought to measure what they regarded as sensation units. At 
the time William James wrote the “ Principles of Psychology,” the great 
problem in this science was still perhaps the question whether the mind 
consisted of a knower who existed outside of and independent of his ideas, 
or was in some way the sum and substance of the ideas themselves. 


It was not until the latter part of the 19th century when biology and 
physiology had achieved definite methods of studying living organisms that 
psychology really broke away from philosophy and began to be in the true 
sense a natural science. 


When I say that psychology is now a natural science I mean that it 
aims at least to take a natural history point of view of human experience 
and behavior. Psychology proposes to study this side of human nature 
in the same spirit and with as few metaphysical assumptions as would 
be found in the sciences of physiology and anatomy in their study of the 
human body. In a word, it would go about its task in about the same 
hard headed way that science studies other natural objects. 


All this at first may seem to be unfair to this humanity of ours. It 
may be said that man is different; that there is something in human nature 


8 


which is not in ordinary objects. Perhaps so. But then let the mysteries 
stay in human nature. Let us keep them out of our science. 

While psychology tries to study human nature in the scientific spirit 
we should remember that it is a science still in the making, and has many 
problems yet to solve. It is important that we dwell on this point in order 
that we may see just how far psychology has succeeded at present in its 
scientific aim. 

What Characterizes a Science. 

What constitutes a science? I should say in general that a study must 
have achieved three things before we may properly call it a science. First, 
there must be some agreement as to its scope; that is, it must be pretty 
clearly understood what this particular study is about; what facts should 
be included in it and what should not. There must be a group of facts 
or data which are related in some way and which can fairly clearly be 
marked off for purposes of study; for instance, the science of anatomy 
studies the structure of the organism; the science of geology studies 
deposits in the crust of the earth. 


Second, there must be a generally accepted method of going about the 
study. This method must be adequate to the task of carefully observing 
the facts with which the study deals, and it must be a method that any 
trained student may employ. In other words, facts which are learned by 
hearsay, which are interpreted by rule of thumb, are not scientific facts. 
And if a man should claim that he got certain information through divine 
revelation we should perhaps be impertinent if we doubted his word, but 
we could not say that information so acquired was scientific information, 
inasmuch as other observers have not been privileged to get their 
information in this way. 


In the third place, the data which have been so marked off and have 
been studied by an acceptable method, are found to be related in certain 
ways. There will be discovered laws or principles which govern their 
inter-relations or changes. These principles are the laws of the science 
and it is the aim of each science to state its laws in terms that would apply 
universally to all situations of a certain kind. The more nearly these laws 
can be stated in quantitative or mathematical formulae, the more happy 
scientific students become. 


Now, when we turn to pyschology we shall, I think, see that in these 
three important matters there is much disagreement among the students of 
the science. It probably should be said further that all the biological and 
social sciences are in very much the same condition, including the science 
of medicine. The scope of psychology is hard to determine. Just where 
is the line to be drawn between psychology and physiology? We shall 
later see that these are two different sciences and yet physiologists very 
often psychologize and psychologists have the habit of physiologizing. 
There is a good deal of physiology in such psychological text-books as those 
of Woodworth, Watson, and James, and there are many sallies into the 
realm of psychology on the part of well known physiologists like Cannon, 
Pavlow and Loeb. Again, psychologists of different schools are frequently 
accusing one another of mysticism and metaphysics, and perhaps this is 
because the scope of psychology has not been clearly distinguished from 
that of philosophy. There are men who maintain that psychology is 
“the science of the mind” and who would include consciousness within 


9 


its scope, and there are others who maintain that it is a “science of 
behavior ” in a much more strict and limited sense than I have indicated 
as yet. These are only a few of the differences of opinion as to the scope 
of the science. 

The problem of method is also a mooted question on the part of 
psychologists. There are in fact two or three different methods. Until 
recently the so-called “introspective method” obtained, and much 
psychological experimentation was conducted by the use of this method. 
The student observed his own differences of sensation, his feelings, his 
ideas, and so forth. There has always been some difficulty with this 
method because obviously the material studied is so subjective that it is 
difficult to get men to agree as to the facts. I may find that my own 
experience gives me data which nobody else examining himself would find. 

It is, therefore, very difficult for scholars to check up one another’s 
work if psychology is limited to this method. Hence, efforts are made 
to render psychology more objective and some scientists go so far as to 
say that psychology can be scientific only in so far as its methods are 
purely objective. In other words, they do not admit that the introspective 
method is scientific at all. Dr. Watson has attempted to reduce psychology 
to an observation of the laws of mere stimulus and response. In other 
words, he would use in the study of human behavior, the same methods 
as are used in animal psychology. It is obvious that an animal cannot 
communicate in words his feelings and ideas even if he has them, and so 
in studying the behavior of animals psychologists could make headway 
only when they could control the animal in such a way that they could 
find a definite co-ordination between a certain stimulus which was given 
and the response which was made. In this way consciousness could be left 
out entirely. The application of this method to human psychology promises 
a great gain in exactness, even though it probably omits many things 
which are of psychological interest. A third method is that of 
psychopathology. This method was developed in the science of medicine 
and we have heard much about it in the general discussion of psycho- 
analysis. It deals primarily with abnormal behavior but it throws much 
light on normal reactions to situations. 

Finally, there 1s the problem of laws in psychology. In any science 
the laws are always open to revision as new facts are discovered and new 
relationships among these facts are noted. The science of psychology is 
so new that many of its so-called principles are open to revision and 
restatement and perhaps this will always be the case. Psychology deals 
with individuals, and if we could wholly succeed in reducing the behavior 
of an individual to formulae which would apply alike to all individuals 
it is obvious that we should thereby completely ignore that which is dis- 
tinctly personal in every one. It may be that psychology can go far in 
giving us laws and principles which apply in a general sort of way as 
explanations of human behavior but that the very nature of its subject 
matter is such that it can never be wholly reduced to quantitative formulae. 


There is really more agreement among psychologists than I have 
indicated in this discussion. I should say that there is fairly general 
agreement on three points. Nearly all who are scientific at all agree in 
holding an evolutionist view of mental life; that is, they believe that the 


10 


psychic nature of man—whatever you choose to call it—lies within the 
process of the development of animal organisms, and that great as are 
the mental differences between men and animals, there is, after all, no 
sudden break anywhere. There used to be much talk about the “ missing 
link ’”’ when the problem of evolution concerned chiefly biologists, but men 
forget that the “missing link” is supplied in the life history of every 
one of us, if we remember that our life began as a single cell, functioned as 
a single cell functions and that through the embryonic and infantile and 
later stages of development all the intervening forms of life and behavior 
have in a telescoped manner been gone through. 


Again, there is fairly general agreement that mental life is chiefly 
concerned with bodily activity. We shall see more of this in the next 
lecture. Third, there is fairly general agreement that the criterion of 
effective mentality, indeed perhaps the very criterion of truth itself, is to 
be found in the facts of adjustment to environment. 

There is much talk today about applied psychology and undoubtedly 
popular interest in this branch of the subject is greatest. Here psychology 
strives to understand and explain many things which have escaped general 
notice and to use our knowledge of human nature in order that we may 
predict and control the behavior of people in definite situations. There is 
a wide range of circumstances in which applied psychology is coming to be 
almost a commonplace. It is used for instance, in industrial matters in 
determining efficiency, in selecting personnel and in advertising. Again, 
psychology is applied to education with very interesting results and with 
a promise for the future which is very encouraging. Under the head of 
applied psychology we should include the intelligence tests used in the army 
during the war and now being used in colleges and many educational 
institutions as a part of entrance examinations. There has been much 
debate about these tests, which require a special technique, and have also 
some very definite sociological implications. We will reserve discussion 
of all these forms of applied psychology until later. 

A moment ago I mentioned psychoanalysis. This is a phase of 
Psychopathology, and we shall see that some of the most important con- 
tributions to modern thought are the results of the work of Freud and 
others in this field. I am inclined to think that psychopathology among 
other things is going to have a far-reaching effect upon ethics, religion, 
and many factors of the social problem. 


This leads me to say a word about social psychology a separate 
branch of the study to which this study is in fact an introduction. 
The literature on this subject now is rather extensive and it is interesting 
to note that it has all come within the last quarter of the century. Social 
psychology covers many fields of interest. It has much to say about po- 
litical science, about economics, criminology, the behavior of crowds, the 
forms of normal social adjustment, propaganda, public opinion; in fact, 
the whole range of the behavior of people toward their fellows. We may 
expect in the next few years a very rapid reorganization of most of our 
knowledge in this field as social psychology throws its light upon human 
relationships which were hitherto interpreted by tradition and dogma. 

Finally, I should perhaps add that while our science has now prac- 
tically come out from under the sovereignty of philosophy, it is having 
in turn a marked influence upon its former lord and master. And as we 


i] 


are all seeking a working philosophy of life which will help us better to 
relate ourselves to reality, this point is important. We shall have occasion 
as we go on to show how modern psychology is influencing our thinking 
about thinking and therefore about the meaning of truth and many of the 
basic values and ideals of life. The old intellectualist or rationalistic 
philosophy was itself largely the result of ignorance about psychology. 
That older philosophy is now passing away under the criticism of scientific 
psychology, and as it passes many sociological and other fictions about 
human nature also recede into the distance. Intellect is no longer seen 
to be a mere receiving instrument tuned in on an ethereal broad-casting 
station to pick up eternal truths; it is in a very real sense a creative thing. 
The meanings which it gives to life are not mere “ stereotyped copies of 
a de luxe edition”’ of realities and principles which exist in the unseen; 
they are real human achievements. In a sense psychology shows us that 
intellect and all its works are instruments by means of which man is 
coming to control the forces that play upon his life. With a better knowl- 
edge of human nature, it is our hope that he may yet learn how best to 
govern his own behavior; and to work toward a happier, more tolerant 
and better-ordered world. 





LECTURE II 
Psychology and Physiology—A Study of Reactions. 





PSYCHOLOGY AND PHYSIOLOGY: 
A Study of Reactions. 


F WE ARE to understand modern psychology we must stop thinking 
] about mind as if it were some invisible thing, distinct from the body. 
I do not mean that we should think of mind, after the fashion of certain 
early materialists, as a product of the body, for a product also is a thing 
and we should not think of mind asa thing at all. Mental life ts a process. 
Perhaps at present we do not even need to use the words “ mental life.” 
All life is a process, and what we call mental life is part of that process. 
As Spencer said, “Life is the adjustment of inner to outer relations.” 
And James said that this is also a good statement of what mental life is. 
You cannot imagine an idea or a purpose or an act of human volition 
that is not in some way either directly or indirectly part of a process of 
adjustment of the living organism to its environment. 


We Are Concerned With Behavior. 

It is characteristic of organisms that they respond in certain ways 
to the situations about them. Very simple organisms respond in very 
simple ways and more complex organisms respond in ways that are more 
complex. Man, the most highly organized of all living things, seems 
at times to respond to objects in ways that can only be explained if 
we take the possibility of his fore knowledge of the results of his be- 
havior into account. This kind of behavior we call intelligent. While 
there is a marked difference between intelligent and purely automatic 
activity, yet we may say that in the study of intelligence, psychology is 
concerned with the responses that living things make to their environment. 

What is it that responds? We do not need to assume now some 
invisible spiritual being or other—worldly principle. | There may or 
may not be such a being hidden in the organism. That is a matter for 
the philosophers to talk about. Psychology is concerned with the be- 
havior of the organism. If you are interested in the structure of living 
beings, that is, if you study the body, your interest is in anatomy or 
biology. If you are interested in the action of these beings you are 
concerned with psychology. Perhaps it 1s too crude to say that mind is 
the way the body behaves. But, at any rate, such a statement would come 
nearer the truth than the assumption that the mind and the body are two 
separate beings or distinct streams of events. It would be incorrect to 
say in general that psychology is the science of the behavior of organisms. 
For physiology is also concerned only with certain kinds of behavior. 

The line between physiology and psychology is not always clear. 
Yet the two are separate sciences. They often deal with the same facts 
of bodily function, but they deal with them from very different stand- 
points. For instance, the function of breathing or of the beating of the 
heart are certainly bodily activities the study of which belongs to physi- 
ology. But the breathing and the activity of the heart may be greatly 
modified when a person or an animal is excited, and then it may be said 
that these bodily functions have something to do with psychology. Per- 
haps it would be best to say that physiology is concerned with bodily 


[15] 


16 


changes in so far as they are the functions of separate organs and that 
psychology is concerned with those changes when they have the function 
of relating the organism as a whole to its environment. 


Many people hold that psychology is concerned with these activities 
only when they are accompanied by consciousness. But psychologists 
are not agreed upon this point, and as there is much debate over the 
question whether consciousness makes any difference, we had better wait 
and discuss this point in a later lecture. Many scholars have 
blurred the distinction between these two sciences. But relatively speak- 
ing, the difference is well recognized. For instance, I sit at my desk 
writing this lecture. A physiologist would be interested in describing 
the contraction of the muscles in my arm and fingers; he might tell 
me how these movements are related to other bodily organs and their 
functions, as for instance, digestion, respiration, and so forth. Further- 
more, he might perhaps tell me that I could think more clearly if I sat 
up straighter. But he would not as a physiologist be concerned about 
the reason why I am writing this particular lecture and not some other, 
and he would not be a physiologist in the strict sense if he began to 
discuss the relation between my habit of giving lectures and my behavior 
as a whole or that of other people. These last are questions of psycholog- 
ical interest. 


The point which I wish to make clear is that psychology is cons 
cerned with behavior and that the behavior which has psychological inter- 
est grows out of and is, in a sense, continuous with those functions 
which we call physiological. Water at a certain temperature begins to 
boil. We may regard the boiling as a way in which water sometimes 
acts, and we may ask ourselves under what conditions does it boil? 
Of course, we do not talk about the “psychology” of the water, but 
neither do we think of boiling as a mysterious and invisible thing which 
comes along and miraculously attaches itself to the water. All we need 
to say is that boiling is a process, a kind of activity of water under cer- 
tain conditions. So psychologists might say that what we call mental 
life is a kind of activity which characterizes the life process of certain 
living organisms. 


William James, in the “ Principles of Psychology,” says, “On the 
whole, few recent formulas have done more real service of a rough sort 
in psychology than the Spencerian one that the essence of mental life and 
bodily life are one, namely, ‘the adjustment of inner to outer relations.’ 
Such a formula is vagueness incarnate; but because it takes into account 
the fact that minds inhabit environments which act on them and on 
which they in turn react; because, in short, it takes mind in the midst 
of all its concrete relations, it is immensely more fertile than the old- 
fashioned ‘rational psychology,’ which treated the soul as a detached 
existent, sufficient unto itself, and assumed to consider only its nature 
and properties. I shall therefore feel free to make any sallies into 
zoology or into pure nerve-physiology which may seem instructive for 
our purposes, but otherwise shall leave those sciences to the 
physiologists,” 


17 


He elsewhere tells us that the stream of stimulation which runs in at 
our eyes and ears and other sense organs must, if complete, run out again 
in various bodily movements. This way of putting the case might lead 
one to think that there are two streams, one which comes through our 
eyes and ears and so forth, and another which consists of our ordinary 
bodily functions. We shall see later that nothing enters in at our eyes, 
ears, etc., except our Own nerve currents, certain changes within nerve- 
tissues when the nerve ends are irritated by objects to which they are 
sensitive. There is no reason for assuming that these nerve currents, 
whatever they consist of, are not part of our whole life process; so we 
do not need to assume two streams of activity. It is important to note 
that James here insists that what we call mental life begins and ends in 
bodily sensitiveness and movements. We think in order to act, or better 
still, thinking is a part of acting. 


The Behavior of the Single Living Cell. 


Now let us try to get a picture of the kind of organic behavior in 
which psychology is interested, and let us see if we are correct in assum- 
ing it to be a purely natural phenomenon. Let us begin by asking what 
the simplest living thing does, and let us see if there is any real con- 
tinuity between such behavior and that of highly evolved beings like 
ourselves. If we find that all behavior is made up of the same elements 
we shall have discovered a very important fact about human nature. 


Some writers in describing the facts which we are about to discuss. 
would say that they were giving “the physical basis of mental life.” 
I think this is a misleading way of putting it. For we have already 
said that the physical and the mental are but two views of the behavior 
of living organisms. Since the life process of every living thing begins 
with a single cell, let us imagaine that we are looking through a micro- 
scope at a living being which consists of just one cell or tiny globule of 
living matter. There are millions of these little beings all about us. Let 
us suppose that we are looking at a protozoan, say an amoeba. We 
should see that this cell consisted of a nucleus and a surrounding layer of 
living tissue or protoplasm. The very fact that this cell is alive means 
that it is doing something. Within it very complicated changes are 
going on: nutrition, decomposition, growth. If the cell were watched 
long enough under the right conditions it might be seen to divide into 
two cells each of which would be just like the original one. This is the 
manner in which the amoeba reproduces itself. 

Moreover, we should see that this little creature can move about. 
It first pushes out a tiny extension of soft tissue, and then draws the bulk 
of its body into the extended portion. In this way we might say that it 
flows along, but its flowing is not like the flowing of a drop of water which 
moves in the line of motion determined merely by the force of gravity. 
The amoeba can move up hill or in any direction as it is stimulated. Other 
so-called unicellular organisms move by different methods, some having 
one or more long spines, or hair-like threads, attached to the cell-body 
by means of which movement is achieved. The sperm cells of animals 
move in this way. 

If the amoeba is irritated by a pointed instrument it will contract. 
If it is in the presence of nourishment it may expand and fold itself about 
the particle of food and thus absorb it. Some one-celled beings are par- 


18 


ticularly sensitive to light; others to certain chemical substances or elec- 
trical currents. Professor Jacques Loeb calls these latter movements 
“tropisms.” He says that they are caused by the fact that the living 
substance has a peculiar chemical constitution which is attracted or repelled 
by chemical activity in much the same way as chlorophyl, the substance 
in the green leaves of plants, causes their leaves to respond in certain 
ways to light. Loeb believed that these original movements of living 
beings or tropisms are purely mechanical in their origin and nature, and 
are so determined by the conditions that it might be possible to describe 
all the movements of all living beings in terms of the same kind of mathe- 
matical formula that a physicist might use to describe the Jaws of gravity. 


Thus he thought that in psychology we are merely dealing with these 
original “ tropisms.” We are greatly indebted to Professor Loeb for our 
knowledge of tropisms, but whether they explain as much as he seemed to 
think they do is a matter which has not yet been proved to everybody’s 
satisfaction. 


Now let us notice what we have said about the behavior of the living 
cell. It does many things, In fact, in a rudimentary fashion, it does all 
that any higher animal can do. It performs functions of nutrition, reaction 
to irriating stimuli, reproduction, and movement in space. Why it should 
do all these things is a problem which we cannot now solve. Perhaps 
we never can; for we are asking why life exists at all. Even if we should 
say that these functions are the result of physical and chemical causes, 
acting in a strictly mechanical way, we would then only be saying that in 
the simplest cases, and under certain laboratory conditions, it is possible 
to predict with mathematical accuracy what movements will occur. 
Whether we have then said all there is to say about such movements; and 
whether the activities of more complex beings, even assuming that they 
are made up of these more simple functions, add anything when such 
simple movements are combined in new ways,—these are questions which 
a chemical and mechanical interpretation of life would necessarily leave 
unanswered for us. 


Many students think that the simple elements of what in more complex 
organisms become the varied forms of animal behavior (including con- 
sciousness) are properties of matter itself. Perhaps it is a poetical view 
of things to suggest, as Lloyd Morgan did, that all matter contains a 
sub-psychic quality. But a botanist of some reputation has recently written 
two popular articles; one on the mind of plants, and another on the mind 
of the molecule. Our problem is difficult enough without trying to 
psychoanalyze molecules. So let us be content to say that the elementary 
forms of behavior are to be found in all living beings and that in the more 
highly organized ones these elementary movements are combined in very 
complex ways so that results are achieved which, of course, are unthinkable 
when we contemplate only the simple forms of life. 


Now let us see how the same elements of behavior constitute the 
activity of the higher forms of life. A moment ago I spoke of the fact 
that the amoeba reproduces itself simply by dividing into two cells. This 
process of cell division is a very important fact. It is a form of behavior 
which creates what a little while ago we saw certain writers are wont to 
call “the physical basis of mental life.’ If we are willing to speak of 
mental life as behavior, it is quite possible then to reverse the logic of the 


19 


phrase quoted above and to speak of the psychical basis of the physical 
structure, inasmuch as every living body is the result of a process of 
growth and this process of growth is a way in which the cells which con- 
stitute the body behave. When amoeba divide, two new cells are created 
which live for a time an independent existence. If we consider living 
things which are a little higher in the scale of complexity, we find that 
this process of spontaneous cell division seems to run down, in time, and 
that after a certain number of divisions, no new cells are produced. The 
process has to be started up again by the union of these independent cells 
with other cells of the same species. 


Very early in the evolution of life two kinds of cell-producing organisms 
appear, each carrying its own modification of the germ plasm of the species: 
the ova or female cells and the sperm or male, cells. Each of these types 
of cells may go on dividing just like the amoeba during the life of 
the organism which bears them, but they will produce a new organism only 
when the ovum is united with the sperm cell. This is true of both plants 
and animals and is, if you stop to think about it and study all the facts, 
a very complicated form of behavior. A higher organism is created by 
the process of cell-division similar to that which we saw in the amoeba. 
The impregnated ovum in producing the new animal embryo at once begins 
to divide. As it does so the cells divide in two ways: one process of cell- 
division goes on reproducing the parent-cell, and these cells, which are 
similar to the original one, become the germplasm, the function of which 
is, in mature life, to unite with the germ cell of the opposite sex and 
reproduce the species. The other process of cell-division creates different 
kinds of cells and arranges them in four layers which combine to produce 
the embryo. Thus in the embryo a structure is gradually built up as the 
cells divide. But the cells which are combined to make up the animal body 
no longer perform all the life-functions as do the cells of the original 
protozoa ; certain cells go to make up the motor organs of the body, others 
the digestive organs, the nervous system, and so forth. 


The function of conducting to the motor tissue (muscles and glands) 
the stimuli or irritations that play upon the organism and of responding 
to these stimuli is performed by the nerve-cells. These nerve-cells are 
called neurones. 


A neurone is a living cell with a nucleus and its surrounding proto- 
plasm, very much like an amoeba, only in the neurone the surrounding 
tissue is greatly modified as to shape. It is, as it were, divided into long 
branching threads. Perhaps we can get a picture of the nerve-cell of a 
higher organism if we imagine it as a microscopic tree. The nucleus is 
in the trunk; the roots are few in number (often only one) which extend 
like a tap-root to a very great length, sometimes several feet. This ex- 
tension or tap-root is called the “axone” and its function is to conduct a 
stimulus away from the central body or the trunk. On the other side 
of the trunk there is a number of branches which resemble the limbs 
and the twigs of a tree. These bush fibres are called dendrites, and their 
function is to conduct stimuli toward the central body or trunk. The 
neurones with their axones and dendrites are very numerous. There are 
millions of them in the human body and they are arranged into a system of 


20 


intricate connections called the nervous system. The ends of the axones 
and dendrites are like brushes, and they fit into the structure of a sense 
organ or “ receptor” in the skin, muscle, eyes, ears, and so forth, or the 
brush on the end of an axone will fit to the brush on the end of the 
dendrite of some other nerve-cell and thus form a connection between 
two cells. The point where these brush ends of different neurones meet 
is called a synapse. And it is through these synapses that nerve currents 
pass. 

When a current of stimulation passing in through the dendrite to a 
cell body, out along an axone goes through the synapse to the dendrites 
of some connecting nerve-cell and thence through its cell body, and out 
along one of its axone to a muscle fibre, causing that fibre to contract, we 
call that connection between the sense organ and the muscle fibre a 
reflex arc. Note that this is the same phenomenon of behavior, only much 
more complex, that we saw in the amoeba as it contracted when irritated 
by a sharp instrument. This reflex arc is important because it is that 
which connects the stimulus with the organ of response and is the 
elemental fact of our whole psychic life or behavior. ‘This is the basis 
of all our reactions, and in a very real sense our whole mental life may 
be said to consist of reactions to stimuli . . . We will take up this 
matter a little later. Let us return for a moment to the nervous system. 


The Nervous System. 

It is impossible for us in this course to enter into a detailed discussion 
of the anatomy of the nervous system in man. Various text books in 
psychology give some space to this subject. Those who are interested 
{ advise to consult James’ “ Principles of Psychology,” Chapter IT; 
Woodworth’s “ Psychology,’ Chapter II; Watson’s ‘“ Behaviorism, 
Lectures-in-Print; Chapters Ili and (IV.\ Here I> merely avin 
to call attention to the fact that while in many lower forms 
of life the nervous system consists merely of ganglia, or clusters of nerve- 
cells, more or less loosely connected; in vertebrates, especially in men, 
the neurones with their axones and dendrites are arranged in a definite 
formation which, while it shows various stages of evolution from fishes to 
man, attains a high degree structural organization. As Herbert Spencer 
would say, “ with this structural complexity there goes a similar functional 
complexity.” 

Many writers have compared the human nervous system to a tele- 
phone system, with the exchange in the higher co-ordinating centers, 
notably the brain, and with myriads of nerve fibres running in and out, 
most of them through the great cable or spinal cord. So complex are 
the connections here that almost any stimulus can be connected with any 
motor organ and at various levels. There are simple reflex arcs organized 
in the lower centers of the spinal cord, and there are higher organizations 
of reflexes, which not only may bring the entire organism into action but 
may bring the action itself into definite relation with past experience and 
with foreseen future results. 

For our present purpose let us look at man’s nervous organization as 
made up of two systems, the cerebro-spinal system and the sympathetic 
system. We cannot dwell at length upon the anatomical structure or 
arrangement of these two systems, assuming that all those who have had 
an elementary school course in anatomy will be able to remember the facts 


| 


in general. We are chiefly concerned with their functions and these I 
shall state briefly. The statement must necessarily be rather crude; but 
it will, I trust, make clear the important aspects of the subject. 


The cerebro-spinal system consists of the brain, spinal cord, and nerve 
dendrites and axones which lead out to sense organs and to the various 
muscles and to the synapses which govern the glandular secretions and the 
action of certain “ unstriped ’’ muscles, of which we will speak later. The 
function of this nervous system is primarily to enable the organism to make 
such movements as will relate it to its environment. It thus serves to con- 
nect the stimuli which are picked up by the sense organs with the organs 
which produce appropriate movements. It is thus essentially a mechanism 
of motor significance. 


The brain and spinal cord consist of white tissue and gray matter. 
The white tissue is made up of dendrites and axone fibres which conduct 
impulses toward or away from the nuclei of nerve cells. The gray matter 
consists probably of the nuclei and of the synapses to which I have re- 
ferred. In the spinal cord a cross section would show that the white or 
connecting fibres are on the outside and the gray matter is at the center, 
arranged somewhat in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross. 


In the brain, notably the cerebrum, the highest co-ordination organ- 
ization, the white fibre is underneath and the gray matter is on the “ con- 
voluted”’ or deeply folded surface. This gray surface is called the 
cerebral cortex. Psychologists say that this is where the various sensory 
currents are associated with the appropriate motor nerves although it 
must be remembered that many reflex arcs are organized in the spinal cord 
or the lower centers of the brain. It would seem that the higher centers 
are brought into the various reflex arcs in order to relate the organism 
as a whole to the, objects about it and that the lower centers produce what 
would be called specific responses or single movements which are organ- 
ized rather automatically. 


Experiments on animals would show that a frog, for instance, whose 
cerebral hemisphere had been disconnected, would appear somewhat 
weakened in its response, would lack the initiative which an ordinary 
frog would show in getting itself out of difficulties. But, otherwise, to 
the casual observer, it would appear very much like a normal frog. If 
some of the lower brain centers are also removed the frog no longer 
responds to stimuli such as the presence of food, and its movements are 
jerky and appear to be mechanical or forced. The frog can still swallow 
and croak and turn over, and its circulation and respiration are appar- 
ently not greatly impaired. If all the brain is removed and nothing is 
left but the spinal cord, respiration ceases and the frog will not move 
about. It lies rather flat. But it will still respond to tactile stimuli, the 
limbs even moving more quickly than in a normal animal. Thus, we see, 
that if we begin with the lower centers, the simplest reflex arcs would 
produce mere jerky movements and that the higher centers, when con- 
nected into these arcs, would have the function of enabling the animal to 
act as a whole. 


The sympathetic system consists of certain ganglia or groups of 
nerves, scattered in the vital organs of the body and are thus outside the 


22 


cerebro-spinal system. These nerves do not connect with any sense 
organs, but receive their stimulus through synapses which connect them 
with the nerves running from the cerebro-spinal system. The sym- 
pathetic nervous system is said to control the contraction and relaxation 
of the “unstriped”’ muscle tissue, notably that of the muscles in the 
arteries and heart, the alimentary canal, sex organs, sweat glands, and 
so forth. They also stimulate the secretions of the various glands which 
are located in the body, and these secretions, when they are poured into 
the blood stream, produce effects which we shall see later have something 
to do with the emotions. Much has recently been said about the func- 
tions of the autonomic or sympathetic system, and particularly about 
the influence upon personality of the scretion of the ductless or endocrine 
glands. For instance, the thyroid. We cannot pause here to enter upon 
a discussion of this very important matter. When we come to the con- 
sideration of the emotions we shall have more to say about it. The student 
who is interested in it is advised to read Chapter 14 of Professor Cannon’s 
book, “ Bodily Changes, in Pain and Hunger, Rage and Fear.” 


Reflex Action. 


I wish now to say something about the reflex or nervous current 
which passes through this complicated structure, producing movements 
which are appropriate to certain stimuli. Of course, this is a very won- 
derful phenomenon if you pause to think about it, but so is all nature 
wonderful. It is wonderful that evolution should ever have developed 
an organism wherein an irritation to one part of the body can be so 
connected with a distant organ in another part of the body that move- 
ments will take place which will bring the entire organism into such 
relations with the objects about it that it may use these objects for its 
own welfare. It is even more wonderful that at certain times the organ- 
ism may become aware of what is happening and that this awareness may 
further aid it in adapting itself to situations that do not yet exist, but the 
causal connections to which it can foresee. Perhaps this wonderful fact 
is part of the whole mystery of nature which we all must feel if we let 
ourselves stop and marvel. I am very sympathetic to this attitude of 
wonder, but if we are going to be scientific, we must shake ourselves 
and try to see if there are any relations among these marvels which we 
can understand. I think there are. 


Much has been said by psychologists about reflex actions. Perhaps 
the simplest reflex is seen in the one-celled amoeba. But Woodworth 
shows that relatively few simple reflexes occur in humans. The winking 
of the eye, when anything touches the eye-ball is a good example. Such 
reflexes take place in about five one-hundredths of a second. The narrow- 
ing of the pupils of the eyes in a strong light, the knee jerk when the 
tendon just below the knee joint is struck, are other examples, and there 
are others not quite so simple, such as coughing, sneezing, etc., and the 
apparently spontaneous jerking of the muscles when the body is irritated 
in certain ways. We have already seen that the connection between 
the sense organ and the muscle fibre is called the reflex arc. ‘This arc: 
consists of the linking of certain neurons so that there is an incoming, 
or afferent current, an association of centers consisting of one or more 
synapses, and an efferent current which conducts the motor impulse to 


23 


the muscle fibre of some organ of movement. Behavior in the simplest 
terms consists of the contraction and relaxation of muscle fibres, though, 
of course, we should not arrive at a satisfactory account of behavior if 
we were merely to describe these muscular movements. We should have 
to know to what situations they were responding, whether the response 
was effective in dealing with the situation, how it was modified by past 
experience, and finally, by what methods it could be controlled or improved. 

When we look at the bodily movements of an organism we can see 
that they are, in the main, of two kinds: random movements which do 
not bring the organism into any effective relations with outside things, 
and co-ordinated movements in which the organism stimulated, does 
something toward the object which stimulates it. Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, 
the English psychologist, saw in these two kinds of reaction the basis 
of a much wider distinction. This writer, in co-operation with Dr. Head, 
performed an interesting experiment. The nerves in Dr. Head’s arm 
were cut in such a way that no stimulus was received. During the slow 
process of healing, the time came when there was a response of a certain 
sort. Dr. Head’s hand was irritated, but he could not tell just where 
the irritation occurred. There was a general feeling of discomfort and a 
general and unadaptive movement. Briefly we may say that this sort of 
response to stimulus he called the protopathic. He maintained that in the 
process of evolution this was the earliest form of behavior and inas- 
much as emotion and some instinctive activity seem to retain this kind of 
response, he held that it 1s a basic factor even among higher organisms, 
though it is now, for the most part, repressed; that is, it goes on more 
or less unconsciously under normal conditions and often exists only in 
an incipient manner. The protopathic response is characterized by two 
facts. First, it is usually on the all-or-none principle. That is, proto- 
pathic action, if’ set going at all, generally stimulates the motor organs 
to their full capacity, thus such action is not graded to the amount of 
the stimulus. Most emotional and instinctive behavior show this all-or- 
none tendency. Second, protopathic response is largely what Dr. Rivers 
calls “mass reaction.’ One sees an excellent example of this in the 
tendency of a worm to “squirm” with its whole body when irritated. 
These movements are random movements. ‘That is, they are outlets of 
energy, but they do not adapt the organism to anything. Dr. Rivers 
found that in the war when soldiers received certain injuries in the 
cerebro-spinal system they made movements of this sort. In fact, we 
are all familiar with such movements in persons who are suffering great 
excitement or severe pain. Much emotional activity is of this type and 
is protopathic. 

The complete healing of the severed nerves in the Rivers-Head ex- 
periment restored normal response, and when this normal response came 
back, the protopathic form of response disappeared; that is, it was re- 
pressed because there was super-imposed upon it a more adequate kind 
of behavior which we may call the specific response. The specific re- 
sponse is movement which is directly adapted to a situation. Dr. Rivers 
calls this kind of response the “ epicritic.” 

This latter kind of reaction does not, under normal conditions of 
life, consist of one specific reflex, but as Watson has shown, random 


24 


movements become through various processes of learning in early child- 
hood, and later, co-ordinated into movements that are of use to the or- 
ganism. This co-ordination of reflex actions has been given the name 
of “conditioned reflexes.’ We shall find that much is said about con- 
ditioned reflexes. The best known experiments with this phenomenon 
were conducted by the Russian physiologist, Pawlov. Pawlov’s dogs are 
famous in psychology. His experiment, in substance, is as follows: A 
hungry dog is shown food and the sight of this food stimulates the flow 
of saliva. When the food is shown the dog, a bell is rung, and after 
repeating this for a long time, Pawlov found that the dog’s saliva glands 
will be stimulated into activity if the bell is rung even when there is no 
food visible. Thus, by association, a reflex which is set going by a 
stimulus is now connected with something that normally would not have 
produced the reflex action at all. This transfer of stimuli is what is meant 
by the conditioned reflex, and Watson and others have shown that a 
similar conditioning of reflexes can be set up in human beings. 


As I said, the working of the nervous system has often been likened 
to that of a complicated telephone exchange. While this is in some ways 
a good likeness, in other respects it rather fails. We do not know how a 
message from a sense organ is translated into the appropriate bodily move- 
ment. Probably the conditioned reflex explains how this occurs. But 
even this can not wholly explain it, because the synapses between the 
neurones are not equally receptive at all times to nerve currents. When 
they are carrying one impulse they seem to be closed to any other. Some 
psychologists think that a selective process is going on in the organism. 
Again, there often seems to be more response than is indicated by the 
stimulus. For instance, if you pay very close attention to what you really 
see and hear, you will notice that you do not see and hear as much as 
you think you do or as much as you act upon. A few rumbling sounds 
indicate the approach of an automobile or a street car and you act upon 
the stimulus far in excess of what you hear, you construct at once the 
street car or automobile as a whole. In fact, you have inferred from your 
past experience most of what you thought you heard. Much less was 
given than you probably realize. 


Whether consciousness is necessary to explain human behavior or 
whether, if we take it into account, we have an adequate explanation; 
whether behavior can be explained mechanically; whether an individual 
really has alternative modes of response to certain situations; or whether, 
given the same physical conditions, one must always behave in the same 
way; all these are problems which are not settled and we shall see later 
how important the difference of opinion concerning these questions is. 


Now we are concerned about the relation of the physiological to the 
psychological. For our purposes we must not think that these two sciences 
are occupied with two separate and distinct kinds of existence, the 
organism. And whether we think of its functioning as the physiologists 
do or as the psychologists do, we are bound to see that we are merely 
taking two views of the activity of the same being. But scientifically 
regarded, the organism is one. However we may think of mental life, 
we should recognize the fact that it cannot be separated from physical 
processes. William James says in “ Principles of Psychology ” that “no 


25 


mental modification ever occurs that is not accompanied or followed by a 
bodily change.” He also points to the effects, on what we call mental 
life, of fever, exhaustion, hypnotism, old age, and the like. 


There is some discussion as to what it is that passes over the nerve 
tissue when it is stimulated. In other words, what does a nerve current 
consist of? It is generally said that some sort of chemical change occurs, 
but we do not know just what this change is. It may be that the chemical 
change, or whatever it may be, is enough to account for behavior. On 
the other hand, it may be that the change is not identical with the current 
itself but is the result of the current’s having passed through the nerve 
fibres. Undoubtedly some sort of force or energy is liberated, but we 
should be careful about the use of the term energy in connection with 
mental life. In the first place, no energy really enters the body through 
the sense organs. You can see that this is so. Light waves striking upon 
the eyes do not enter into the brain, nor does the impact of objects striking 
upon the surface of the body do not continue as a shock or a jar in the 
stimulus which is carried over the nerves. What we always get is a 
stimulus ; in other words, the object which excites us simply irritates us to 
activity which is our own. When we look at things we are not carrying 
pictures or images of them into our brain; the pictures or images which 
we see are the result of the activity of our eyes and our optic nerves. 


Again, the idea of energy has value for science only because it enables 
the scientist to describe the changes in position of particles of matter in 
mathematical or quantitative terms. Aside from this lending itself to 
mathematical description, the word energy has little or no meaning. What 
the mysterious force is in itself we do not know. Bergson seems 
to argue that there is a definite sort of “mind energy ” which he appar- 
ently distinguishes from bodily energy. But this is really a poetic way 
of talking about the mind, and is, I think, an unfortunate way, because it 
leads people to believe that thoughts are a kind of force or energy. They 
are not. They are not properly describable in terms of energy at all. 
Professor Loeb and others hold the view that mental life can be explained 
in strictly mechanical terms. They do not maintain that they can explain 
it now, but they have the theory that we could explain it this way if we 
only knew enough about it. This is the mechanistic theory, and I do not 
think that we should prejudice the case by assuming any such theory in 
advance of fuller knowledge. 


Moreover, as McDougall warns us, we should beware of interpreting 
human conduct in such a way as to make it appear that it is determined 
wholly by the mechanics of the brain. We know very little about the 
mechanics of the brain, and there may be much human behavior which 
is not explicable in terms of brain activity. There may be differences 
of character and habit which are very great, and yet the mechanical 
difference in brain activity may be very small. In other words, while as 
I have tried to show, body and mind really correspond to two views of the 
activity of the same organism, yet, in a very real sense, mental life and 
strictly bodily function may be incommensurable. Let me illustrate what 
I mean, for I am not here suggesting anything mystical or occult. 


An automobile is passing along the street at a certain speed and it 
cannot be denied that the movement of the automobile is determined 


26 


mechanically. It is possible to give a complete account of how the auto- 
mobile moves, and do it in strictly mechanical terms. There is a quanti- 
tative relation between the explosive force of the gasoline, the pressure 
in the cylinders, the size and speed of rotation of the wheels, the weight 
of the car, and the loss of motion due to friction, etc. All this may be 
calculated very nicely and correctly. 


But such calculation does not explain why the automobile is going in 
one direction and not in another, nor does it tell us why the car is pass- 
ing at this particular time. In other words, how the passing of the car 
is related to larger combinations of moving objects. The passing car 
may be carrying a physician who has been called in some emergency; it 
may be carrying a bride on the way to her wedding, or a band of boot- 
leggers or a party of police; or a diplomat rushing to a meeting of great 
international importance. Now, in any of these diverse activities the 
automobile may be playing a very necessary and important part; so much 
so that if it should break down the behavior of certain people would al- 
ways thereafter be different. So in explaining the fact that the car is 
passing we must not only give the principal that causes movement in 
general, but we must relate this movement to the pattern of some larger 
situation in which it plays a part. 


The same thing is true with human behavior. In truth, our mental 
life can be reduced to the simple elements of bodily movement, and we 
do not need to invent any mystery other than that which exists in the move- 
ments of all objects to explain these movements. You may say that they 
are mechanically caused. But, just as in explaining the movement of 
the car, if we want an adequate understanding of what a person is doing at 
any time we must also see his activity in relation to some situation in 
which it occurs. Psychology is concerned with the integration of human 
movements in situations. It studies human activity in the light of the 
connections and inter-relations of one act with another, for our actions 
fall into various series and patterns, and you might say, causal systems. 
To explain an act adequately we must explain it in the light of the 
situation as a whole; or, in other words, we must show its causal re- 
lations not merely to bodily movements but to other facts of behavior. If 
we ignore the situations as a whole we leave unexplained everything 
except the mere fact that activity is going on. Psychology must find the 
significance of human action not in purely physiological causes but in the 
inter-relations of the facts of behavior themselves. We can not ignore 
that action which is the result of some past experience or the action which 
is directed toward some end. So the situation as a whole to which one 
is at a given time responding may involve future events as well as past 


ones. Probably psychology is the only science which has to deal with 
causes of this nature. 


LECTURE Il 
Psychology and Philosophy—The Place of William James. 


“th 


bi? 
rang 





PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY 
The Place of William James. 


ol ee significance of William James’ work in psychology is so great 
that it is impossible for any one to gain an insight into what psychology 
is about unless he has for at least once in his life seen this subject from 
William James’ point of view. Psychology was not an isolated thing to 
James. I mean to say that the student in sharing James’ point of view 
not only gains a new insight into the subject matter of psychology, but 
he gains something more valuable: a different point of view in his thinking 
about most of the problems of our life. There are some writers whom to 
know is to live through an experience which leaves one always thereafter 
different. These are the great writers, and James was a great writer and 
scholar. Woodworth says of him, “ Perhaps no one has better expressed 
in his writings the full scope and tendency of modern psychology than the 
late William James . . . Coming into psychology from the physio- 
logical laboratory, he retained the physiological point of view, was entirely 
hospitable to the new experimental psychology and very early conducted 
experiments of his own . . . All in all, he was evidently a good 
internationalist in his science as indeed every good psychologist must be. 
Better than any other book his great book on the Principles of Psychology 
can be taken as at once a summing up of the older psychology and an 
introduction to the modern point of view.” 


Many of the questions that James dealt with are still so controversial 
that we shall find ourselves referring to him again and again as we discuss 
the various problems of this science. In fact, James’ work is still the 
classic text on the subject, and it is therefore highly important that we 
see just what it is that he did for our science. 


In a sense, we shall have to take a very broad view of James. He 
was not only a psychologist but he was also a philosopher, and a great one. 
At one time he was more quoted and referred to than any other American 
thinker, and he is probably the most distinctively modern philosopher that 
America has produced. 


In the first lecture, I said that psychology, having emancipated itself 
from the older philosophy, is in turn having a very great effect upon its 
former lord and master. In fact, there has occurred in our own time 
the profoundest revolution in philosophical thinking since Plato. I sug- 
gested something of the nature of this change at the close of the first 
lecture when I said that mind is no longer regarded as a passive thing, 
receiving impressions and copying eternal principles, but that mind is a 
creative thing, the primary function of which is to relate the human 
organism to the environment. As Professor Dewey says, we owe much 
of this reconstruction in philosophy to the newer psychology. In other 
words, we owe very much of it indeed to William James, who not only 
did much to work out the principles of this newer psychology but has 
done more than anyone else to show their application to and their far- 


[29] 


30 


reaching changes in the whole body of human thought. For thirty years 
James was the outstanding figure in philosophy and psychology in this 
country. Together with such men as Dewey, Angell, More, Meade, and 
Schiller, he succeeded in making a radically reconstructive method of 
thinking the point of view of very large numbers of educated people. 


Early Influences, Liberal. 


James was born in 1842 in New York City, and was brought up as a 
boy in the house at Number 2 Washington Place. There are two inter- 
esting facts about his early environment which later influenced his mental 
development. In the first place, his father was a man of books, who 
combined the career of a literary man with that of a philosopher; one 
who shared to the full the intellectual movements current in his day; and 
was the friend of such men as Emerson and Thackeray. It was in this 
environment that James spent his boyhood years. The intellectual life was 
not an extraneous thing to him but was almost identical with the adventure 
of living itself. It is this spirit of adventure which we always meet in 
James. Thinking was never for him the dead and formal thing that it is 
for most people. 

Secondly, James’ father was a pronounced religious liberal. In his 
early years he had been a theological student at Princeton University, 
but, sharing the intellectual revolt of the early 19th century yet retaining 
his religious interests, Henry James, Senior, held the most unconventional 
views about religion and life. A story is told of him which illustrates the 
type of man he was. Shortly before his death his daughter was compelled 
to speak to him about what he would like to have done at his funeral. 
He was very much interested, apparently not having thought of it before. 
He reflected for some time, and then said with the greatest solemnity, 
“Tell him to say this: ‘ Here lies a man who has thought all his life that 
the ceremonies attending birth, marriage, and death were all damned 
nonsense.’ Don’t let him say a word more.” Something of this spirit of 
independence, of this dislike of the formal and the conventional, we see 
in the work of William James. Perhaps there is a real inheritance of 
temperament. At any rate, James was the most intensely human of our 
classic thinkers. As he used to say, his aim was to get away from pedantry 
and dusty-mindedness. : 

As a young man, James studied medicine in Europe and came in con- 
tact with the great minds of his time. When he returned to Harvard 
University to teach psychology, he came with a new point of view, com- 
bining as he did the background of the knowledge of medicine with 
the spirit of the German laboratory of experimental psychology. 


It is often said that James gives us a psychology without the soul. 
The critics of the modern psychological movement have their little joke 
about the science. They say that psychology first lost its Soul; then it 
lost its Mind; finally, it lost its Consciousness. This is only a way of 
saying that as psychology becomes more and more a true science, it 
necessarily must reject those metaphysical assumptions which it had in- 
herited from the older philosophers, and take its stand squarely upon the 
facts of human experience. 


James did much to drive metaphysics out of psychology. Briefly we 
may say that metaphysics is the speculation about the “ultimate nature” 


31 


of reality, or that which lies behind the things we see and touch and deal 
with. For instance, metaphysics is concerned with “ Substance.” The 
English philosopher, Berkely, long ago showed that “substance” is 
only a word by which we mean that a certain number of qualities or 
characteristics are found together in a body. Substance as an unseen, 
mysterious thing we do not any longer believe in. Now, as many older 
thinkers believed in a mysterious material substance which lay behind 
the facts which we can experience, so they also believed in a mysterious 
spiritual substance, Soul or Mind, which likewise lay behind the facts 
of mental life and gave them unity. It was felt that this mysterious Soul 
had certain faculties such as memory, imagination, reason, and that these 
faculties somehow took hold of the sensations which we receive from the 
outside world and worked them up into an order of some sort. This 
belief survives to some extent even now in popular psychology, but since 
James it is no longer held to be scientific. 


Psychology Before James. 


Before James the great subject of debate among psychologists was 
the question of spiritualism versus associationism, which we will now dis- 
cuss in turn. By spiritualism I do not mean a belief in spirits and seances 
and mediums, but rather the older philosophical doctrine which I have 
just spoken about, the doctrine of the Soul with its faculties. Of this 
view James says, “ Why should this absolute God-given faculty, say 
memory, retain so much better the events of yesterday than those of 
last year and—why should illness and exhaustion enfeeble it; why should 
drugs, fevers, asphyxia and excitement resuscitate things long since for- 
gotten. If we content ourselves merely with affirming that the faculty 
of memory is so peculiarly constituted by nature as to exhibit just these 
oddities, we seem little better for having invoked it, for our explanation 
becomes as complicated as the facts with which we started. Evidently, 
then, the faculty does not exist absolutely, but works under conditions— 
something must always precede and remind it of whatever we are to 
recollect.” ‘In fact,” says James, “we must become cerebralists and 
know the general law that no mental modification ever occurs which is 
not accompanied or followed by a bodily change.’ “The bare ex- 
istence of a past fact is no ground for our remembering it. Unless we 
have sensed it, or somehow undergone it, we shall never know of its 
having been. Experiences of the body are thus one of the conditions of 
the faculty of memory being what it is.” James here singles out memory 
merely for the purpose of discussion. The same would hold of any 
other “ faculty ” of this metaphysical soul. In a word, James’ psychology 
explains mental phenomena without having resort to anything of this sort. 


The second psychological theory which existed before James was 
called Associationism. This school of thought which, among British 
thinkers, derived chiefly from Locke and Hume, holds that the mind is 
a sort of product or a compound made up of small bits of experience. 
There is no soul or “ knower” back of the sensations and ideas that one 
has, but rather the sensations which come to us as very small bits of 
knowledge are supposed to sum themselves up into ideas. And the ideas 
finally sum themselves up into a sense of self or ego. James raises the ques- 
tion—" this multitude of ideas, existing absolutely, yet clinging together and 


32 


weaving an endless carpet of themselves like dominos in ceaseless change 
or bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, whence do they get their fantastic laws 
of clinging, and why do they cling in just the shapes they do?’ For 
this the associationist must introduce the order of experience in the outer 
world. The dance of ideas is a copy, somewhat mutilated and altered, 
of the order of phenomena. James elsewhere showed that this entire view 
of the mind is erroneous, and that mind is not a passive container of 
ideas, but an active thing; that ideas have no way of compounding them- 
selves or summing themselves up; that there is absolutely nothing in one 
idea that would cause it to associate itself with any other; that the as- 
sociations which we make among things we make chiefly because of our 
human interest. 


Thus the old issue which had, for many years, divided psychologists, 
is, with James, done away and a more fruitful set of problems is pre- 
sented. James showed that there are no permanently existing ideas and 
no impersonal ideas. This is a very important point, because people 
constantly have the notion that ideas are invisible things which can pass 
from one head to another; that an idea is something you can “ get;” that 
ideas exist in books or can be handed down by tradition, and so forth. 
This is a superstitious view. For if you use the synonym for ideas, the 
word thought, you will see at once that thought is the past participle of 
the verb to think, and thinking is an activity of some sort. It exists 
only where the activity exists,—in our nervous system. What we have 
is a thinking, acting individual, who is organically one, and whose former 
experiences have in some way, modified his present behavior. It is 
largely due to James that the emphasis today has been placed upon ac- 
tivity rather than upon the mere knowing processes. 


This placing of emphasis upon activity gives us a view of mental 
life which is very wholesome, for thus we are led to the recognition of 
the reality of the individual in a world of real things. The older thinkers 
who placed their emphasis upon mere knowing had the habit of conceiv- 
ing all reality merely as a thing known; that is, as an object of thought. 
So in the end, thoughts were substituted for things. The world was 
conceived of, primarily, as a thing of the intellect. The great philosopher 
Plato thought in this way. Plato held that the ultimate realities are 
ideas; that “things’ are only the expressions of or manifestations of 
these invisible ideas, and that to know reality is not to participate in 
any activity, but that reality can be known only when we contemplate good, 
true and beautiful principles. In the parable of the cave which occurs in 
his dialogue, “ The Republic,” Plato expresses this view very interestingly. 
He pictures men living in an imaginary underground world, so situated that 
light, coming from behind them casts on the wall of the cave moving shad- 
ows. The men chained with their backs to the light, see these only, shadows 
and to them they are real, but the enlightened one, who has turned his 
thoughts to the higher world of truth, knows that reality is something very 
different from the things that men call real. This “ Something” which 
lies outside experience, can be found only in the world of the abstract, the 
eternal, all else is mere shadow, illusion. From Plato’s time down, even 
today, thinkers have been fascinated with this idea of the “ fallacy of sense 
experience,” 


33 


This theory does not stand sound criticism and it is, moreover, a very 
unhealthy theory. It leads people to strive for imaginary escapes from 
the problems and tasks in their lives and encourages them to seek fic- 
titious goods in a world of fancy and idea. ‘Thus it often leads people 
away from the realities of which their lives consist. It makes them 
feel that they are achieving something when they are merely indulging 
themselves in contemplation. It tends to divert thinking from its true 
ends and make it futile and unprofitable. In contrast with all this the 
point of view of William James is splendidly stimulating. The world 
is always real before him and interesting. It is not a world of philo- 
sophic meditation, but a challenging world, a world which cannot even 
be reduced to any philosophic system but one which for our welfare or 
our unhappiness has many “lines of influence” or kinds of connections 
among things. To discover and set up fruitful relations among things and 
between things and ourselves is the task of the mind and the successful 
achievement of that task is the verification of the truthfulness of our think- 
ing. Therefore, with James and others who followed him, we get away 
from what we call “Intellectualism.”” The emphasis upon activity led 
James to call his own philosophy “ Pragmatism,” a term derived from a 
Greek word meaning action, 


Reality and Selection. 


As James stands for the reality of our world, so he emphasises very 
strongly the reality of individual personality. What we call self-con- 
sciousness, a thing of which many older thinkers have made a mystery, 
James sees to be not so very different from our consciousness of any- 
thing else. Speaking of the empirical self, or self as experienced, he 
showed that our feeling of self is closely related to many things which 
really belong to the objective world. ‘There is, for instance, what James 
calls the “ material self,” our bodies, our clothes, our possessions. We 
identify ourselves with them all. Any injury to them we feel to be an 
injury to ourselves. We often hear people say to one another, “ How 
do I look?” When they mean, ‘“ How do my clothes look?” James 
says that most of the things which I can call “mine” are in a sense 
part of me Anything, in fact, which makes us feel elated when it 
prospers and dejected when it fails is really a part of the feeling about 
ourselves and this self-feeling cannot be separated from our feeling about 
such things. 


The same is true of what James calls our “social self-feeling.”’ 
MacDougall, treating of the point, seems to think that we have an in- 
stinct of self-appreciation and self-depreciation, but as we shall see later 
MacDougall’s whole treatment of instinct is open to question. Certainly 
James seems to be more in accord with what psychologists subsequently 
have said on this subject. Our social-self-feeling is the feeling we get 
from our relationships with other people. James showed that we have 
many social selves, each corresponding to some particular group or social 
interest. Properly speaking, he says that “a man has as many social 
selves as there are individuals who recognize him.” And each of these 
social selves really behaves in a way that is different from the others. 
Thus a boy will behave differently at school, in the street with other boys, 
and at home with his parents. The soldier’s honor is a different thing from 


34 


the honor of a statesman or a judge. Here James has again anticipated 
many of the later developments in psychology, particularly the analytical 
psychology of Freud. There are often conflicts among the different selves 
in us. It may not be easy to reconcile the self feeling and its associated 
habits which we get from one social group with that which we have in 
other relationships in life. 


Beyond the social, there is, according to James, the “ spiritual” self 
and this spiritual self, he says, is not a mere abstract principle of identity 
or “number oneness.” He says it is difficult to detect any transcendental 
or spiritual element at all in this feeling. ‘ Whenever my introspective 
glance succeeds in turning round quickly enough to catch one of these 
manifestations of spontaneity, in the end, all that it can ever feel dis- 
tinctly is some bodily process . . . The self of selves when carefully 
examined is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar 
motions in the head or between the head and the throat.”” In other words, 
according to James, the feeling of self is the real experience in a world of 
facts just like other experinces, or as he would put it, it is a strictly 
empirical fact. Now, “ What is this abstract numerical principle of 
identity, this number one within me, for which, according to proverbial 
philosophy, I am supposed to keep so constant a look-out. Is it the inner 
nucleus of my spiritual self, that collection of obscurely felt adjustments 
plus, perhaps, that still more obscurely perceived subjectivity, as such 
* * * or is it perhaps the concrete stream of my thought in its entirety? 
Or may it be the invisible soul or substance, in which, according to the 
orthodox tradition, my faculties inhere? Or, finally, can it be the mere 
pronoun “I”? Surely it is none of these things, that self for which I 
feel such hot regard. To have a self that I can care for, nature must 
first present me with some object interesting enough to make me in- 
stinctively wish to appreciate it for its own sake.” 


James finds such objects of self-love to be our bodies, our friends, 
our own dispositions, our ideals of ourselves, our actions, and any ob- 
jects which in fact, we take a vital interest in. Thus James puts the self 
of us each out into the world of fact. He makes what is called self- 
consciousness a purely objective feeling. Although James is essentially 
opposed to the older idealists in these matters, we should not think of 
him as materialistic in the ordinary popular sense of the term. Most 
materialists are mechanists; that is, they believe that the activity of living 
things is entirely determined by mechanical causes: therefore, there is no 
place for choice. 


Now the essential principle in James’ psychology is that where mental 
life exists there 1s selection. The word choice stands out in James’ psy- 
chology as in the writing of no other authority on this subject. He says 
that no actions but such as are done for an end and show a choice of 
means can be called indubitable expressions of mind. James makes 
mind consist primarily in the process of choosing. He makes this the 
distinction between mental phenomena and those which are purely physical. 
Let us note how he expresses this at the very beginning of his “ Prin- 
ciples of Psychology.” He says that if you put some iron filings on 
the table, then hold a magnet above them, placing a sheet of paper be- 
tween the iron filings and the magnet, the iron filings will come to meet 


39 


the magfet, but will be stopped in their course when they come against 
the piece of paper, and there they will stay as long as the magnetic cur- 
rent is in operation. Notice that the iron filings have no alternative way 
of acting. They can respond to the presence of the magnet in only one 
way, and if in that solitary way they do not succeed in reaching their end— 
contact with the magnet, they are doomed to failure. But now, says 
James, let us notice the behavior of an animal which is rather low in the 
mental scale, a frog, for instance. Put the frog under water and hold 
an inverted drinking glass over it. Soon the frog will try to come to 
the top of the water to get air. It will try many times to rise through the 
glass, but after repeated failures, the frog will do something which the 
iron filings cannot do. It will take another course. It is this ability to 
choose another course when the first fails to overcome obstacles that 
James finds to be characteristic of all mental life from the lowest to 
the highest stages. It should be said that his whole psychology is written 
around this idea, which lies at the basis of his entire philosophic thinking. 


[ntellect an Instrument. 


As we go on with this course we shall see that we have here a very 
controversial point in psychology. There is a tendency on the part of a 
large group of psychologists today to take the mechanistic point of view 
and assume that there are no real alternatives at all, but that every 
movement or action is determined entirely by physical conditions. This is 
rather an assumption than a proved theory. But it is an interesting and 
an inviting theory to many minds because it seems to simplify the prob- 
lems of psychology and help the scientist to reduce all things to the 
same sort of logical system of causes and effects. James says, “ Now the 
study of the phenomena of consciousness which we shall make through- 
out the rest of this book will show us that consciousness is at all times 
primarily a selecting agency. Whether we take it in the lowest sphere of 
sense, or in the highest of intellection, we find it always doing one thing, 
choosing one out of several of the materials so presented to its notice, 
emphasizing and accentuating that and suppressing as far as possible all 
the rest. The item emphasized is always in close connection with some 
interest felt by consciousness to be paramount at the time.” 


The fact that mental life consists primarily in choosing gave James 
his great insight into the nature and meaning of the intellect. Heretofore 
men had regarded intellect as a copying device, a passive receiver of 
impressions. With James we learn that it is essentially an instrument. 


The theory that the intellect 1s an instrument with which we may 
adapt ourselves to the environment, together with the doctrine that man 
is a choosing animal, is one of the most revolutionizing concepts in mental 
science. Before considering this matter more specifically I wish to discuss 
the issue which it raises in psychology. Mechanists will not tolerate the 
thought that there is anywhere as an active factor in behavior such a 
thing as purpose or selection. They do not believe that there are any 
alternative possibilities. All the acts of every living being are positively 
determined. They are simply the equations of the forces which play upon 
the organism. ‘Thus, given a certain physical condition, a living being 
must act in only one way, and all the manifold actions of man and animals 
are declared to be predictable. Undoubtedly there are many purely auto- 


36 


matic responses which living beings make to certain situations. Moreover, 
the scientific method requires that wherever it is possible to point out the 
factors that determine behavior it should be done. But allowing for all 
this, it is a rather daring assumption to say that all movements and thoughts 
are determined in this way. 


Professor Jacques Loeb is probably as representative of this view 
as any one. As we saw in the previous lecture, he held that because of 
their peculiar chemical constitution living beings must necessarily make 
certain responses to stimuli. He called these responses forced movements 
or tropisms. He said that the more co-ordinated or complex forms of 
behavior are made up simply of combinations of these forced movements 
and that the combining of such movements in higher forms of behavior 
is not the work of the organism acting as a free-agent. These combinations 
are the result of mere synchronizing of stimuli and movements. In other 
words, the environment itself evolves what we call mind. This evolution 
is brought about because certain stimuli again and again fall upon the 
organism at the same time, thus producing what, as we said in an earlier 
lecture, are called “ conditioned reflexes.” Of course, neither Professor 
Loeb nor anyone else has proved this theory experimentally beyond the 
fact that certain very simple organisms when their movements are 
definitely controlled in a laboratory can be made to do certain things in 
such a way that a correlation can be established between the amount of the 
stimuli and the extent of the bodily movement. When we come to con- 
sider the higher forms of life the notion that all movements are mere 
combinations of tropisms, and nothing more, is an unproved hypothesis— 
a sort of faith which is very common to men who take an almost religious 
attitude toward mechanism. The matter comes down to this: The 
mechanist asserts that if we knew enough we could see that his theory is 
true in all cases. He does not claim that we do know enough. 


But it is a serious question whether the mechanists’ theory interprets 
the present known facts of psychology. In a large measure it may be 
regarded as a pure assumption, dragged into science from the realm of 
metaphysics. Back of this theory is the notion that the whole universe 
is dependent upon a single all-embracing principle. ‘The older meta- 
physicians called this principle God, The Absolute, Substance, Brahma. 
More modern metaphysicians give this universal mystery another name. 
They call it First Cause, Force, and so forth. Like their predecessors, 
these men wish to believe that all the facts of existence are manifestations 
of this great principle and are reducible to the forms of human reason. 
In other words, mechanism is a phase of rationalism, it is pure meta- 
physics, for it assumes that the universe itself is essentially rational. And 
therefore, on the basis of such an assumption, the thought that perhaps 
there may be factors in human behavior that are not reducible to a logical 
system seems to many a mind to be a sort of heresy. 


We cannot in this brief lecture discuss this metaphysical theory except 
to marvel that men can hold it so tenaciously in advance of greater knowl- 
edge than we possess. And even though we should succeed in pointing out 
logical and causal connections among all things, should we not even then 
have only one possible view of the world—one among many? It may 
be. as Bergson has argued, that there is such a chasm between the actions 
of organic and inorganic things that one type of activity can never be 


37 


adequately expressed in terms of the other. The changes in inorganic 
beings seem to move in cycles; that is, they repeat themselves. But or- 
ganic beings do not repeat themselves. They never actually pass through 
the same stage twice, for the reason that they are always bing modified, 
first by the process of growth and second by the traces left in their 
nervous structure by their own actions and experience. Thus, if to any 
extent at all an organic being can never again be made to pass through 
identically the same stage in its history it follows that in each: successive 
moment of its life there must be to some degree an element which is 
new, which has not existed before. And if the life history of organisms 
always contains an element of newness or uniqueness, however small it be. 
obviously it is impossible to reduce organic behavior wholly to any sys- 
tem since systems are static while organic behavior is dynamic and ever 
changing. 


Certainly James maintained this view along with Bergson, for he says, 
speaking of ideas, that we never have the same idea twice and cannot, 
because even though we think on successive occasions, about the same 
object, yet the subsequent thought occurs in a “modified brain.” The 
very thought that we are noticing an object again is different from our 
thought that we are seeing it for the first time. James, moreover, repudi- 
ated, in ways that I do not believe have been answered, the philosophy of 
“monistic determinism,’ which as I said lies back of mechanistic theories 
of life. He saw no reason why we should say that the universe is either 
logically or morally one. He rather doubted this assumption and held 
that such unity as we can trace through the world of objects always 
creates a system which is partial and which takes on its character as a 
result of the standpoint from which we start. In other words, all of our 
systems are purely human contrivances, through which we follow out 
certain “lines of influence”? which connect things in ways that happen 
to interest us. 


Now, let us return to my statement that mechanism has not been 
thoroughly proved even in the psychological laboratory. Do organisms 
have more than one way of responding to a stimulus? Professors 
McDougall and Jennings believe they have. McDougall distinguishes be- 
tween what he calls “ purposive action” and “ reflex action,’ and main- 
tains that higher organisms exhibit both types. Even concerning the 
behavior of the lower forms of life Professor H. S. Jennings is quoted 
as follows: ‘“‘ Can the behavior of amoeba be resolved throughout into 
direct unvarying reactions to simple stimuli—into elements comparable to 
simple reflexes? For most of the behavior . . . the stimuli can 
he recognized in simple chemical or physical changes in the environment. 
Yet there are certain trains of action for which such a resolution into 
unvarying reactions to simple stimuli seems unsatisfactory. This is notably 
true for some of the food reactions. In watching an Amoeba following 
a rolling foodball, one seems to see the animal, after failing to secure the 
food in one way, try another. Again, in the pursuit of one Amoeba by 
another, it is difficult to conceive each phase of action of the pursuer to 
be completely determined by a simple present stimulus. For example 
(in the pursuit described above) after Amoeba B has escaped completely 
and is quite separate from Amoeba C, the latter reverses its course and 
recaptures B. What determines the behavior of C at this point? 


38 


One who sees the behavior as it occurs can hardly resist the conviction 
that the action at this point is partly determined by the changes in C, 
due to the former possession of B, so that the behavior is not purely 
reflex.” (“‘ Behavior of the Lower Organisms,” p. 24.) 


Again he writes: “The movements in these reactions are clearly not 
the direct results of the simple physical action of the agents inducing 
them. As in the higher animals, so in Amoeba the reactions are in- 
direct. . . . It is therefore not possible to predict tie movements 
of the organisms from a knowledge of the direct physical changes pro- 
duced in its substance by the agent in question.” (Op. cit., p. 23.) 


“Thus we find in the unicellular organisms very little in the behavior 
that can be interpreted in accordance with this local action theory of 
tropisms.” 


All this, is, in a way, a confirmation of James’ position. In the 
“Principles of Psychology,” he says, “ All the centres, in all animals, 
whilst they are in one aspect mechanisms, probably are, or at least once 
were, organs of consciousness in another, although the consciousness is 
doubtless much more developed in the hemispheres (cerebral) than it is 
anywhere else. The consciousness must everywhere prefer some of the 
sensations which it gets to others; and if it can remember these in their 
absence, however dimly, they must be its ends of desire. If, moreover, 
it can identify in memory any motor discharges which may have led to 
such ends, and associate the latter with them, then these motor dis- 
charges themselves may in turn become desired as means. This is the 
development of will; and its realization must of course be proportional 
to the possible complication of the consciousness. Even the spinal cord 
may possibly have some little power of will in this sense, and of effort 
towards modified behavior in consequence of new experiences of 
sensibility.” 

“ All nervous centers have then in the first instance one essential 
function, that of ‘intelligent’ action. They feel, prefer one thing to 
another, and have ‘ ends.’ Like all other organs, however, they evolve 
from ancestor to descendant, and their evolution takes two directions, the 
lower centers passing downwards into more unhesitating automatism, 
and the higher ones upwards into larger intellectuality. Thus it may 
happen that those functions which can safely grow uniform and fatal 
become least accompanied by mind, and that their organ, the spinal cord, 
becomes a more and more soulless machine; whilst on the contrary those 
functions which it benefits the animal to have adapted to delicate environ- 
ing variations pass more and more to the hemispheres, whose anatomical 
structure and attendant consciousness grow more and more elaborate as 
zoological evolution proceeds. In this way it might come about that in 
man and the monkeys the basal ganglia should do fewer things by them- 
selves than they can do in dogs, fewer in dogs than in rabbits, fewer in 
rabbits than in hawks, fewer in hawks than in pigeons, fewer in pigeons 
than in frogs, fewer in frogs than in fishes, and that the hemispheres 
should correspondingly do more.” Let us omit for the present all dis- 
cussion of the terms “‘ Consciousness” and “ Will” in the passages just 
quoted: all I am concerned about now is to show that James msists upon 
the place of selection in psychology. 


39 


In his Briefer Course, James says that as the functions of the higher 
centers are added to those of the lower ones, ‘an animal’s behavior has 
become incalculable, we no longer can foretell it exactly . . . in 
addition to the previous response (which James is quite prepared to say 
consists of forced movements) to present incitements our frog now 
goes through long and complicated actions of locomotion, spontaneously,” 
or as if moved by what in ourselves we should call an idea. Again, “ the 
lower centers act from present sensational stimuli alone. The hemispheres 
act from considerations, the sensations which they may receive serving 
only as suggestors of these—but what are considerations but expecta- 
tions?—They are, in short, remote sensations and the main difference 
between the hemisphereless animal and the whole one may be concisely 
expressed by saying that the one obeys absent (objects) and the other 
only present objects.” This obedience to absent objects, objects which 
should not actually be present in any situation to which an organism 
responds, is something which does not seem to me to be explicable upon 
the strictly mechanistic theory. James uses the principle of selection all 
through his writing, and while much of his work has been subjected to 
more careful study, and sometimes to revision, by those who have fol- 
lowed him, he has not been successfully refuted upon this point. Nor 
has it been shown that his theory of spontaneity and selection is less true 
to the facts of experience than the theory which mechanists would sub- 
stitute for it. 


A moment ago we said that James maintained the intellect 
to be an instrument for adapting the organism to its environment. I 
wish first to show the relation between this view of the intellect and 
James’ theory of mental selection. Then I wish to show what is the 
significance of this view for all our thinking. James argued that mental 
life was essentially concerned with bodily movements. Even in the 
chapter on “ Will,” where he is sometimes accused of indulging in 
mysticism and moralizing, he still holds that all we can directly will is 
our own bodily movements. In the chapter on “Attention,” he holds that 
attention is essentially a selective thing: that it is by noticing special 
aspects of the manifold environment that we not only give that environ- 
ment some meaning but also deepen in our own organization certain im- 
pressions which subsequently may determine our choices. 


Certainly, when you stop to think of it, we are not uniformly or im- 
partially responsive to the things about us. How little any one of us 
notices in a situation. We often fail to notice things which are actually 
playing upon us or stimulating us. For instance, as I write this lecture 
there is the pressure of my clothes; there is the weight of my body; there 
is the ticking of the clock; there are various lights and shadows and 
noises all about me; and these things are actually present physical stimult, 
yet unless IJ make an effort to notice them, they go unobserved while I am 
occupied with patterns of action which are not directly called forth by 
my present physical situation at all. I am responding to stimuli which 
extend all through my past and have developed in me certain habits of 
thinking. Of the many kinds of vibratory movements in the material 
world, our sense organs select only a very few to respond to, sounds and 
lights and tactile impressions, etc. Even among these there is again 
selection, for the range to which we can respond (for instance, the tones 


40 


we can hear) is limited and among the objects which we can see and hear 
we really respond to very few. Those to which we really respond we 
arrange into a sort of hierarchy of importance, selecting some as having 
significance and others as not. Among those which have significance for 
us we have our preferences. What is this whole process but selection? 
Is it not true that we are building up a sort of order among things and 
building it up on the basis of our own survival and human interests and 
preferences? In other words, how could we behave in such ways as to 
secure our survival in the world if we did not make such selections 
among things? How could our lives have any meaning? 


Except for the fact that, as James says, we are “interested specta- 
tors’ in the world of things, there would be no meaning at all. A being 
which was equally interested in everything could not be particularly in- 
terested in anything. The meaning of our world is the meaning which 
we give to it. A cross section of what is happening at any particular 
moment is merely a “ booming, crashing confusion.” If we were merely 
acted upon by our environment and did not in any way react upon it or 
select within it the things to which we respond, it would be foolish to talk 
about our doing the things which make for our survival or future better- 
ment. We intervene in the course of events, as Dewey says, in order 
that our future functioning may be richer. Our acting at all has this 
significance that it causes certain things to become actual which at the 
time we act exist only in the world of possibilities, and our very act also 
closes a door to some alternative possibility. 


39 


Thus we are always saying “yes” and “no” to things. James 
made much of this fact that we are active and creative agents in the world. 
To the end our reasoning is partial. He shows that reasoning is possible 
only because we notice certain aspects of things which are relevant to 
our interests and in noticing these things we ignore all other facts which 
may be said about any object which concerns us. Thus, if we are in- 
terested in the chemical constitution of water, we ignore its thirst-quench- 
ing qualities, the fact that it is a fluid, the place of water in art; in fact, 
everything except the relation of water to two gases—oxygen and hy- 
drogen. Now H,O is not really water. It is only a symbol which re- 
presents a particular interest which we may have concerning water, an 
interest which while we have it excludes all other interests, if we are to 
think as chemists. So in all our thinking, thinking never gives us an 
equivalent of the facts of the world about us, but consists in the string- 
ing together of symbols, which symbols are representative not so much 
of things as of some peculiar and especial interest concerning the things. 
These symbols we work up into systems, the value of which is to give us 
a better hold upon the world of facts. So, as James says, thinking is 
essentially a function of behavior. It is instrumental and it derives this 
function because mental life is essentially selective. 


If we were pushed about, as the mechanists say we are, if we were 
not called upon to decide about future events, being determined wholly 
by the past, there obviously would be no reason why we should think at 
all. Thus, according to our author, thinking is creative since it is out of 
our interests and out of the fact that we must act in certain ways to 
secure certain ends, that the meanings of life are created by us and for us. 


41 


These meanings are purely human achievements, including as they do all 
our institutions, all our “truths,” all our logical and moral systems. 
Truths are man-made. Truth, says James, is what we say about facts 
when they fit in to the totality of our experience. A fact becomes true 
when it is verified ; the word “ verify’ means to make true. So a fact be- 
comes true when it 7s made true. This position is known philosophically 
as pragmatism, a word which James gave to the humanist point of view, 
and by humanism I mean the doctrine that truths are man-made. 


It is obvious that scientific truths, like other truths, are man-made. 
They are not invisible or spiritual things which are given in advance. 
They are discoveries of relationships among things of human significance 
which have been isolated for purposes of better knowledge. They derive 
their relative importance from the partiality of human reason and the 
process of selection which is basic in all behavior. The meaning of any 
truth anywhere comes down in the end to be what we must do about it, 
hypothetically, if not actually. If an idea makes no difference to us it 
may as well be false as true. Thus, we see even the mechanistic doctrines 
of science are themselves highly selected instruments for dealing with 
reality. The mechanistic philosophy itself could never have come into exist- 
ence if mechanism were a correct account of behavior. 


James’ Influence on All Thinking. 


As with scientific truths, so with so-called moral, philosophical and 
“ spiritual” truths. These, too, are human devices. They are not, as 
Plato thought, eternal ideas existing in the world of pure contemplation. 
There are no eternal or absolute truths. The very word absolute means 
that which is out of all relations; therefore, that which makes no differ- 
ence; consequently, that which may as well be false as true. 


James found in this method of thinking not a system of metaphysics 
but an instrument for dealing with philosophical and sociological questions 
in a new and more fruitful way. It brushed out the dust that had ac- 
cumulated through the ages of idle philosophic speculation. It did away 
with the older “ intellectualism,” with its notion that mental life is strictly 
a knowledge affair and it put in the place of the impersonal and static 
and predetermined universe of rationalism a new and more significant 
view of life. Things are not static. Man is making real choices in the 
mixed up world of real goods and real evils, seeking to create some sig- 
nificant meanings out of the stream of events and actually helping to 
determine to some measure what the outcome of human existence shall 
be. Therefore, the world is not the fixed thing that older thinkers thought 
it to be. It is an unfinished world, a world of which even a divine being, 
assuming him to exist, could not know the outcome. ‘‘ We shall never 
know what the world is,’ says James, “until the last man’s vote is 
counted.” 


In a strictly psychological discussion these philosophical considera- 
tions would not play a part, but some account of them is necessary in 
order to show the significance of what William James has done for 
psychology. Psychology in this sense makes a difference in our think- 
ing. It has uses which may be of value to us in determining the ends 
toward which we are striving. It is more than a mere scheme for 


42 


manipulating people. And also perhaps it is permissible to digress from 
the technique of psychology far enough to suggest what it would mean 
in the way of tolerance and effectiveness generally if people could hold 
their principles as James suggests we should. Principles should be 
verified. Most people wish to vindicate them. Principles are merely 
leading ideas. Their value is to lead us to more fruitful and valuable 
experiences and actions. The Intellectualistic philosophy has always 
in the end substituted a mere form of thought for the facts of experi- 
ence. The philosophy of determinism always robs behavior of its sig- 
nificance inasmuch as it always teaches that actions in the present 
are determined solely by the past. James’s philosophy is a forward 
looking philosophy. It shows that future events act as considerations in 
human behavior and calls men to pay some attention to these future 
events and learn to value them as real alternatives among which we have 
to choose. : 


The point of view of James is essentially anti-traditional. It is 
empirical. That is, it is an appeal to the facts of experience. It is opposed 
to our denying facts for the sake of logical consistency or in order to 
maintain some made-in-advance theory. It helps us to see the importance 
and seriousness in all living of the fact that man is a choosing animal. 
It does away with the old static universe and shows us our behavior thrown 
upon a background of real events in a world which is not underwritten 
and guaranteed, a world in which we have to take our chances. It leaves 
the future open. Suppose men could begin thinking in these terms about 
morality, religion, the economic class struggle, about politics and social 
problems. I am sure that new and more effective mental habits would 
be developed, and that psychology would contribute as it never has yet 
to the solution of the riddle of living, 


LECTURE IV 


Psychoranalysis—What Freud and his followers have done 
for Psychology. 





PSYCHO-ANALYSIS: 


What Freud and His Followers Have done for 
Psychology 


EARLY every one to-day has heard something of Freud and of Psy- 
cho-analysis. To many people psycho-analysis is a sensational 
subject or it is merely an amusing whimsicality. Often it is regarded as 
something more or less disgusting. Sometimes people look upon it merely as 
a new device for curing nervous patients of their ailments. The truth is 
that Freud’s work in psychology is a very serious matter and constitutes an 
important development of the science. We are not concerned in this 
lecture about the psychoanalytic method of curing diseases. Our interest 
is in the new light which Freud has thrown upon human nature and 
in the contribution which he has made to psychology. 


The Misfortune of Psycho-Analysis. 


Psycho-analysis has been unfortunate in the type of popularization 
which it has received. It came to the public as a new and startling dis- 
covery. There has for a long time been in America an interest in psycho- 
therapeutics, or “mental healing.” This fact is shown by the uncritical 
crowds who only recently followed Monsieur Coué when he visited 
this country. People wish some magic cure. They have the notion that 
there is locked up in themselves a storehouse of spiritual superiority 
and material success, and if only psychology can speak the magic word 
we shall all be transformed into beautiful and effective beings. ‘There is 
also in the public a half-conscious resistance to our moral conventions. 
People often like the discussion of forbidden topics, if only the discussion 
can be made to appear scientific. Knowing these facts certain persons 
have naturally taken advantage of the situation and have found in a 
distorted caricature of psycho-analysis a method of easy aggrandisement. 
Often the popularization of psycho-analysis has been carried on by well- 
meaning people who had no first-hand knowledge of Freud’s work, and 
had little previous training in psychology. The result has been that for 
a number of years psycholo-analysis was a sort of fad. It was “the 
latest thing.” Fortunately, this period has nearly passed. Many of the 
people who read cheap books about psycho-analysis and attended sensation- 
al lectures on the subject are occupied now with new and later fads. And 
serious students can now give their attention to this branch of psychology, 
without the feeling that they are in some way encouraging a popular 
fallacy. 


It is also unfortunate in a way that psycho-analysis was not 
developed by professional psychologists in our universities. For this 
meant that many of those who became interested in it were, in a sense, 
outsiders while the psychological profession as a whole has been very 
slow to take a serious interest in it. Psycho-analysis is an achievement 
of the medical profession and it has, therefore, what is to the professional 


[45] 


46 


psychologists a strange point of view. Its terminology appears to be 
inexact, unscientific, and even mystical. Moreover, it often challenges 
the introspectionist and behaviorist schools of psychology. 

The result is that even to-day much of the teaching of psychology 
in our universities goes on as if Freud had never existed. There are a 
few psychologists like Dr. Stanley Hall and Professor Woodworth who 
have been frankly interested 1n psycho-analysis. And there are others like 
Knight Dunlap, who are quite hostile. Dr. Stanley Hall says that this 
indifference and hostility is one of the causes of the unsatisfactory condi- 
tion of the science to-day. He says of the present condition of the 
science, “I find a growing dissatisfaction with results which has greatly 
increased with the war and a growing uncertainty as to whether we are 
really on the right track. . . . Thus I believe that there is a growing 
consensus of the competent that the condition of psychology in this country, 
and indeed throughout the world, is far from satisfactory. And that the 
promise of two decades ago has not been fulfilled. . . . Psycho- 
analysis and the study of the unconscious have been condemned on super- 
ficial grounds by most American psychologists of the normal. 

Despite all the errors and dangers psycho-analysis really marks, not the 
first, but the full advent of evolution in the psychic field.” 

In the preface to the English translation of the “ Introduction to 
Psycho-analysis”” by Freud, Professor Hall further says, that Freud’s 
discoveries ‘‘ have attracted more and growing attention and found fre- 
quent elaborations by students of literature, history, biography, sociology, 
morals and esthetics, anthropology, education and religion. They have 
given the world a new conception of both infancy and adolescence and 
shed much new light upon characterology; given us a new and clear view 
of sleep, dreams, reveries, and revealed hitherto unknown mental mechan- 
isms common to normal and pathological states and processes, showing that 
the law of causation extends to the most incoherent acts . . .; taught 
us to recognize morbid symptoms . . .3 revealed the operations of the 
primitive mind so overlaid and repressed that we have almost lost sight 
of them; fathomed and used the key of symbolism to unlock many mys- 
ticisms of the past; and in addition to all this, affected thousands of 
cures, established a new prophylaxis, and suggested new tests for character, 
disposition, and ability, in all combining the practical and theoretic to a 
degree salutary as itis rare. . . . The impartial student of Sigmund 
Freud need not agree with all his conclusions, . . . to recognize the 
fact that he is the most original and creative mind in psychology of our 
generation.” 

This is indeed a generous statement, coming as it does from one 
who might, in a way, be called the dean of American psychologists, espe- 
cially in view of the fact that in many instances Freud’s work necessitates 
a modification of Dr. Hall’s own conclusions. Freud has been compared 
to Darwin. Perhaps it is an overstatement to say that the Freudian 
development in psychology is as significant and revolutionary an achieve- 
ment in human thought as was Darwin’s publication of the “ Origin of 
the Species ”’ in the middle of the last century. Nevertheless, as psychology 
comes to be more and more important in our knowledge of human affairs, 
the work of Freud will occupy in the future a larger and more significant 
place. Freud, like Darwin, has given the world | a point of view which 
not only is new in itself but which necessitates the restatement of many 


47 


beliefs which at first-hand would probably seem to have nothing to do 
with it. I am convinced that all our human sciences will be rewritten in 
the light of Freud’s discoveries. Already the social sciences, sociology. 
economics, and social psychology are beginning to feel the effects of 
Freud’s world changing thought. To one who is familiar with psycho- 
analysis many of our preconceived notions about politics and social theory 
are seen to be mere guess work and many of our prevailing social ideals 
and movements are seen to be very different in motive and character from 
what they appear on the surface. 


Psychology heretofore has been able to throw very little helpful light 
upon social situations. It is not enough to say that men’s associations 
are due to the existence of group mind, as Professor MacDougall does, 
or to the herd instinct as does Dr. Trotter,—or even to say with Professor 
Dewey that customs and traditions, in fact the forms of civilization, consist 
of habits. Habits, indeed, but we need something more specific. Psy- 
chology must show us how those social habits are built up in the life 
history of people, what ends they serve, what long-forgotten events in 
individuals’ past may determine them, and we must also look to psychology 
for information concerning the value of various habits,—whether they 
are correct forms of adjustment to situations or are morbid fixations. We 
should know when people’s thought and behavior are really solving prob- 
lems which confront them in the real situations of their lives, and when they 
are merely seeking escape from reality or consolation in defeat, or in 
some way to preserve their comforting fictions about themselves. 
I can see no answer to questions like these unless we take the work of 
Freud into account. 


A Brief Account of Freud’s Work. 


We have no time in this brief lecture to give anything like a historical 
account of psycho-analysis. But the main outline will be of some interest, 
I think. Freud, as I said, approached psychology from the practice of 
medicine. Before 1890 psychology had already taken into account the 
effects of abnormal mental life. Hypnotism was known and cases were 
reported giving certain valuable facts about hysteria_and other forms of 
neurosis. In James’ “ Principles of Psychology”’ there is a fairly good 
resumé of the achievements of psychology in this direction at the time. 
One interesting explanation of certain abnormalities was that of “ multiple 
personality.” It was discovered that certain patients could be put into 
such conditions that they acted and seemed to regard themselves as really 
different persons at different times. Often, between these various 
“personalities” which existed in the same individual there were memory 
gaps of such a nature that when the patient thought of himself as one 
of these personalities he could not remember anything that had to do with 
the other. Sometimes there was, however, a consciousness of the other 
personality, but no real connection between these various levels of con- 
sciousness. Psychopathologists gathered from such facts the conviction 
that much nervous disease was the result of a splitting of consciousness, 
as if a certain portion of the mind might be broken off from the main 
body of the association of memories, and in the detached condition seem 
to form a little association of its own. Many forms of automatic behavior 
and of compulsive or obsessive ideas were explained in this way. Certain 


48 


physicians whose task it was to treat such cases resorted to hypnotism 
in the attempt to reintegrate the broken-up personality. When the patient 
was hypnotized the physician made certain suggestions designed to 
re-associate the split-off elements of the mind with the main consciousness 
of the patient. 


It was in this way that Freud at Vienna began his work with such 
patients in the early Nineties. He found that when patients were 
hypnotized they often remembered things which they could not re- 
member in their normal waking consciousness. When these forgotten 
facts, most of which were very painful to the patient, were later 
brought to his consciousness he commonly showed strong emotion; 
in fact, he reacted to them with very much the same emotional re- 
sponse that one would show in actually experiencing them. ‘This 
was an interesting psychological discovery for the patient might have 
been for many years unable to recall these unpleasant memories. 
More interesting still is the fact that very often when such things 
were brought to his mind the emotion that he expressed seemed to 
clear things up for him so that he got well. From this fact it was 
concluded that his nervous trouble was due to his inadequate 
emotional response at the time of certain unhappy experiences. 


The bringing about of such a belated response in the effort to cure 
the patient was called the “cathartic method” and the emotional re- 
sponse which was produced by this method was given the rather awk- 
ward name of “ abreaction.” 


Freud began his practice with these facts in mind, but he says in 
his early papers on hysteria that he had some difficulty in applying 
hypnotism. Often the patient refused to be hypnotized. At any rate, 
Freud said there were many persons he was unable to treat in this 
way. So he had to find another method of getting at these forgotten 
memories which were troubling the patients. He began by pressing 
his hands on the patient’s head and suggesting that he or she would 
remember. In this way, after exhaustive effort, he found that he was 
able to bring out the forgotten psychic material into consciousness, 
just as had been done with patients who were hypnotized, Later he 
discovered that sometimes patients could recall their forgotten ex- 
periences when they were allowed just to talk freely and at random. 
Freud also discovered that when his patients told him their dreams. 
the dream commonly had some relation to the facts which they 
were trying to recall. In this way Freud learned the technique of 
interpreting dreams. It was in a sense similar to the technique which 
he had employed in interpreting to his nervous patients the signifi- 
cance of forgotten things which in themselves had often proved to be 
insignificant to the patient even when recalled. 


Freud’s work on dreams is the classic study of the subject and is 
one of the most important books in the whole science of modern 
psychology. After accumulating thousands of studies of dreams he 
was able to show the psychological meaning of dreams for the first 
time in history. He learned that the dream is a symbolic expression 
of some hidden wish; that it contains elements in it which go back 


49 


to infancy; that the wish is generally one which we don’t admit that 
we entertain; that the dream is invariably egoistic; in other words, 
that we fare in some way actually, or under certain disguises, always 
the hero of our dreams. Perhaps a simple case reported by our 
author will make clear the way in which he made use of dream 
analysis to learn what was in his patient’s unconscious mind. One 
of Freud’s patients, a young woman, unmarried, relates to him that 
she dreamed her nephew (her sister’s only son), a young boy whom 
she loves very much, is dead. Freud, by getting her to remember all 
the facts associated with this dream succeeded in interpreting it 
about as follows: Several years ago, this young woman lived in her 
sister’s house. At that time she was engaged to a certain young man 
whom her married sister disliked and, owing to the sister’s opposi- 
tion, the engagement was broken off. The patient, at least con- 
sciously, accepted the inevitable and believed that she had come to 
agree with her sister’s judgment. The young man went away and 
she did not see him for several years. At this time the married 
sister had two boys. The elder one died and at the funeral service 
the patient noticed that her former fiancé had returned. She saw him 
as she stood beside the casket containing the body of her nephew. 
In the dream she now recalls that he is again standing in the same 
position beside the casket containing the body of the second boy who 
she dreams is dead. Centering her attention upon this fact, brings to 
her the consciousness that the dream merely means, not that she 
wished her nephew to die but that in fancy she is duplicating the 
scene in which her lost fiancé returned. Hence the dream is am ex- 
pression of the wish that some accidental situation might bring this 
man back to her. 


Freud learned that there were many typical dreams; such as 
falling, flying, being undressed in the presence of a group of people, 
being submerged by a tidal wave, and so on, All these are typical 
Symbols of certain wishes which we have but do not recognize. 
Thus Freud was led to the theory of the unconscious. The uncon- 
scious consists of those forgotten facts and wishes which we cannot 
recall at will, The reason why we cannot recall them is that they 
have been “repressed;” that is, they have not been reacted to 
adequately for the reason that such a reaction would be painful. 
While, therefore, we do not attend these wishes and memories, they 
exist in us just the same and they produce in us certain effects. 
Sometimes the unconscious impulses are expressed in bodily symp- 
toms as in hysteria. It has long been known that there are a great 
many persons who apparently suffer certain ailments while physically 
there is really nothing the matter with them. Freud has shown that 
the symptoms in such cases are really symbols of something in the 
unconscious. In other words, it is as if in some respect the dream 
thought or wish were haunting the individual during his waking hours. 
The same is true with the various actions and ideas of the insane. 
Curiously enough Freud has demonstrated that errors in speech, 
forgetting in general, and in fact, a very large part of our daily life, 
are all expressions of things which exist in the unconscious. In the 
“ Psychopathology of Every Day Life” Freud discusses these things, giv- 


20 


ing many illustrations in proof of his contention that even the tiniest 
and most insignificant things are really governed by the laws of 
cause and effect. The discovery of the specific causes of acts which 
otherwise we should regard as purely accidental in ourselves has led 
' to a new view of human nature. 


We are not the beings we consciously think that we are. There 
exists in us each and all something of the animal, the savage, and a 
large element of childish egoism. The conscious habits which we 
build up through the course of our lives, hold these more primitive 
impulses in check. We get the habit of diverting our attention from 
them. We come to picture ourselves as persons in whom primitive 
trends do not exist; but they do exist, and in many disguised forms, 
they assert themselves. So, while primarily, psycho-analysis has to 
do with curing persons who are mentally abnormal it shows us our 
normal behavior in a new perspective. 


The Unconscious. 


Perhaps I can make clear this matter of the unconscious by a 
simple analogy. Let us say that a man leaves his home to attend a 
lecture at Cooper Union. He gets in the subway several miles from 
the hall in which the lecture is to be given. He may probably dur- 
ing that time read a paper or book or talk to someone. He may not 
once during the entire journey consciously think of the lecture or 
his purpose of attending it. It is as if he had made a connection 
between the purpose of attending the lecture and the Astor Place 
station in the subway and then, having made such a connection, he 
drops the matter out of his mind until the subway guard calls “ Astor 
Place.” Then he suddenly gets up almost automatically and steps 
out on the platform. I have often seen people step out on the plat- 
form in arather dazed condition as if for a moment they could not con- 
sciously recall how they happened to be there. Now, during the 
time that our traveler is on his way to the lecture he is not thinking 
about the lecture or Astor Place station. Nevertheless, unconsciously, 
he has for the time so organized himself that the calling of the station 
automatically discharges him into activity. That is, the purpose to 
attend the lecture becomes an impulse to act when the fact in the 
environment with which it is associated is present. 


Now there are formed in the lives of all of us many such asso- 
ciations. Purposes that we have long forgotten, tendencies in our- 
selves which we have “subdued and mastered,” unhappy experiences 
and desires which are inconsistent with our disciplined and mastered 
characters, may operate in us in a way similar to the operation of 
the purpose to leave a subway station at Astor Place. We may not 
even know just what these associations are. Nevertheless, the for- 
gotten purpose may be incited to some incipient degree by thousands 
of things which we never think of as being associated with it. Thus 
whole elaborate systems of unconscious association may be built 
about certain of our suppressed desires and we may, quite unknown 
to ourselves, be experiencing tendencies to act upon these repressed 
impulses. These tendencies of the unconscious do commonly not throw 


51 


normal people out of harmony with their environment. We may be re- 
minded of some vague forgotten experience by smelling a flower or 
hearing a song; we may have certain likes and dislikes of people 
which we cannot understand; sometimes we may have a curious feel- 
ing, on seeing certain objects, of having been in certain places before, 
when we know that this is impossible. Sometimes we find ourselves 
inaudibly repeating lines of poetry or silly jingles for whole days 
without being able to stop and we wonder why that thing keeps 
running through our heads. 


If this were all that the unconscious did in our lives it would 
not be a very serious matter; but it might be interesting psycho- 
logically. But we shall see as we go on in this course of lectures that 
many of our religious beliefs are moral ideals, our social philosophies 
as well as many of the customs and traditions of organized society 
have the function primarily of expressing in symbolic form certain 
of our repressed wishes. Our lives consist of fictions and whims to 
a degree that is quite unsuspected by us and oftentimes, when we.act 
upon such fictions, we are surprised to see that we thought we were 
doing one thing when we were really doing something quite different, 


The abnormal mind becomes the victim of these systems of associa- 
tion which are built about its repressed wishes. So much so, indeed, 
that one may lose his sense of reality altogether, and be unable to 
distinguish between fancy and fact. In many cases it is as if one 
were dreaming throughout the greater part of his life a dream from 
which he could not be awakened. In a sense, we are all “the stuff 
that dreams are made of.’ The unconscious with its dream thoughts 
exists underneath our conscious life like a stream flowing under a 
foot-bridge. Our acts of conscious attention are like planks thrown 
over this stream, resting upon rocks which here and there rise above 
the surface. We throw out these efforts of attention in order that 
some conscious purpose may cross over to an achievement, but the 
purpose seldom gets across with dry feet; often we upset the planks 
and tumble in altogether. 


As Dr. Stanley Hall has pointed out, we are greatly indebted to 
Freud for our knowledge of the processes by which one reaches his 
mental maturity. The psyche, or mental nature of the maturer person, is 
not so much a growth as it is an achievement. During childhood and 
adolescence each one of us has passed through various critical periods, 
periods in which there had to be achieved a definite integration of the 
forces of our nature, and in which it was necessary to detach our interest 
from various objects that held our love and loyalty, and to find new 
interests and new ways of reacting adequately to an ever widening 
environment. “The child,” says Freud, “is naturally polymorphous per- 
verse.” By perverse he means that the psycho-sexual life of the child 
differs from that of the normal adult in that it is not attached to the 
same love objects as it is with normal persons. There is a period when 
a child is egocentric; a period when he attaches his love to one or both 
parents; a period also which is called narcissism, in which the growing 
youth himself becomes the object of his love. In the process of psycho- 


52 


sexual development there are many places where the emotional life may 
go astray. Wrong environmental influences, hereditary defects or a 
bad start may cause the individual to become the victim of various 
“ fixations,” that is, if at any point of his development he has failed to 
solve the problems of a certain critical period, he is likely to remain fixed 
in the emotional attitudes of an earlier stage of his development. This 
fixation is frequently accompanied by a certain complex of ideas. Some- 
times this complex may be an unconscious wish, often it is a conflict which 
is going on unconsciously, in both cases the wish or the conflict is asso- 
ciated with a system of ideas. The individual will, then, in all likelihood, 
be unable to meet certain situations in his later life. 


The perverse tendencies which Freud says exist in children are, as 
he puts it, polymorphous—that is, they are many-form. Physiologically 
the little child has various erogenous zones, or areas in the body which 
respond with sex feeling to stimulus. During the process of growth 
in many of these zones there must be a repression of the erogenous type 
of response to stimulus, and the libido, or capacity for love excitement, 
must be directed toward the organs which in later life serve for reproduc- 
‘tion. Along with this reintegration there must be such a building up of 
functional capacities as will enable the individual to behave normally in 
the situations of his mature life. 


There are individuals who, unfortunately, retain various of these 
perverse tendencies. Some are consciously or unconsciously sadistic; that 
is, their sex interest instead of being associated with affection is associated 
with the love of cruelty. Others are masochistic—that is, they retain 
consciously or unconsciously in later life a curious sex-excitation in 
experiencing self-torture. Others may remain autoerotic; that is, they 
are never able to free the sex interest from their own persons so that 
they can give themselves whole heartedly to anyone whom they love. 
And finally, there are, of course, certain individuals who remain in mature 
life, either consciously or unconsciously, homo-sexual—which means that 
they more easily love a person of their own sex than one of the opposite 
sex. When these maladjustments occur in mature people we speak of 
them as perversions. If I understand Freud correctly, he wishes to imply 
that tendencies to all these perversions exist in small children and are not, 
with them, really abnormal. Normality, therefore, is achieved by habit 
formation and the habits are not easily acquired, and none of our habits 
of normality are so thoroughly achieved as to destroy completely the 
infantile elements in our psychic life. We trail behind us not necessarily 
“clouds of glory,’ as Wordsworth said, but our unconscious carries in 
a more or less repressed manner all that we have been or lived through, 
or have failed to become. 


Fortunate indeed is he who “ out of the booming, crashing, confusion ” 
of his early years, and through the “storm and stress” of adolescence 
comes to maturity with such mental habits as enable him to meet the 
demands which life will henceforth make upon him. Such, of course, 
is the normal man, and it is possible that if parents and educators knew 
more of the Freudian psychology many more individuals would reach 
their maturity mentally equipped for the tasks of life than have done so 
in the past. 


93 


So far we have spoken about the repressed elements, which exist in 
the unconscious of the individual, normal and abnormal. Much more 
should be said on the subject. I would suggest that the student read 
such books as “ Mechanisms of Character Formation,’ by Dr. William 
White; “A General introduction to Psycho-Analysis,” by Freud; “The 
Neurotic Constitution,” by Dr. Alfred Adler, “ Psycho-analysis”’ by Dr. A. 
A. Brill. Repression in itself is not an evil. It is positively necessary if 
there is to be any order or effectiveness in our lives. All thinking and all 
habit formation depend upon it. One of the misrepresentations of psycho- 
analysis has to do with this point. 


During recent years there has developed a school of scamp psychol- 
ogists who have told their followers that repression is an evil which may 
result disastrously for them. The compare the repressed “ energy ” in the 
psyche to steam which is enclosed in a boiler without any possibility 
of escape and they picture the neurosis as a form of explosion, thus 
telling young people that if they allow themselves to be “repressed” by 
moral conventions or by our present social system, they are running the 
danger of a frightful neurotic explosion. And they point to the doing 
away with inhibition as the path of happiness and effective living. Can- 
didly, this is sheer nonsense. Doubtless there is more restraint in modern 
civilization than would be necessary if men were intelligent enough to 
govern their behavior by ideals which are relevant to the situations in 
which they act, but that is another matter. It has to do with what I 
hope may some day be a common-sense attitude toward morals. We are 
not, however, discussing morals now, but psychopathology. Every repres- 
sion involves in some way a conflict. But if the repression is successful, 
the conflict is solved to the satisfaction of the individual. What psy- 
chology is concerned with is unsuccessful repression, and such repressions 
demand not that the people “ go on the loose;” they demand re-education. 
If people tried to live without any inhibitions, they would very soon 
find themselves in much more serious conflicts than they were before. 
For us, as students of psychology, the important fact is just the difference 
between a successful and unsuccessful type of repression. Sometimes 
a successful type of repression is called “sublimation,” which means 
that there has been set up in the individual, through the creation of what 
in an early lecture we called a “conditioned reflex,” habits which direct 
his repressed psychic energies toward socially acceptable ends. 


The interesting point about material which is unsuccessfully repressed 
is that it gets out of us in some sort of disguised form and leads us to 
actions and thoughts which are often not what we think they are. Thus, 
there was reported in a recent psychological journal the case of a man 
who was subject to what was apparently epileptic attacks. It seems 
that his father had fainting spells due to heart trouble. The simplest 
explanation of the case would probably be to say that this man had inherited 
the disease. Close examination, however, revealed the fact that the 
patient’s attacks were not due to epilepsy or to heart trouble, but were 
of a hysterical nature. That is, they were a symbolic expression of some 
wish or conflict. Analysis revealed the fact that back in this man’s 
childhood there was a morbid fear of his father, and a stronger than 
normal attachment to his mother. The fact was also revealed that the 
patient was employed in the office of an elderly man who was very 


54 


strict morally, and whom the patient unconsciously identified with his 
father. An attachment grew up between the patient and one of the 
female employees with whom he worked. Fear of the employer’s dis- 
approval was related as the cause of the neurotic symptom of fainting. 
When the picture of this patient’s psychic life was sketched out it was 
found that his fear of his father was associated with an unconscious 
love of his mother, and also was often associated with an unconscious 
identification of himself with his father. The pseudo-epileptic attacks 
of fainting were the symbol of this self-identification since the father 
had suffered from heart attacks. They were, therefore, a neurotic and 
ineffective form of protest against the authority of the employer to whom 
the patient had to defer. It will be seen that most neurotic symptoms, 
like most dreams (Freud would say all of them) have the function of 
expressing in symbolic form some such repressed wish or conflict. 


There are three or four types of expression which the unconscious 
may assume, all of which have interest for our study. First, there are 
what we might call mechanisms of defense. Such mechanisms are fabri- 
cated by the unconscious to protect one’s feelings about himself against 
the recognition of tendencies in his own nature which are unacceptable 
to his conscious. Thus, the individual to whose case we have just referred, 
suffered his attacks of fainting because they were in a way a defense of 
his ego. So Freud reports a case in which a young man suffering from 
compulsion neurosis behaved similarly. Compulsion neurosis is a neurotic 
disease in which individuals find themselves compelled even against their 
will to say and do things which are often silly or injurious. The 
case reported by Freud is that of a young man who was impelled to stay in 
his room for fear that he might do some body an injury, and who spends 
his time writing alibis so that no one may accuse him of having committed 
murder. Analysis in this case showed that the patient unconsciously had 
in mind the thought of killing his father, who, as a matter of fact, had 
been dead for a number of years. Here was, as you see, a fixation of 
the nature referred to above. In this case, as in the case of the man who 
suffered with fainting spells, the unconscious cause of the difficulty was 
an infantile attachment to the mother image, and a consequent fear or 
hatred of his father. This situation is rather common. It is known as 
the “ Oedipus Complex.” You will remember that in the Oedipus myth 
of the ancient Greeks, Oedipus is led by cruel destiny to kill his father 
and marry his own mother, Jocasta. It is interesting to note how great 
a part this myth plays, not only in the dream literature of the world, 
but also in the great religions. It may be argued, therefore, that there 
is an element of the Oedipus Complex in most people, and that much 
thinking serves the purpose of a defense against it. If not the Oedipus 
Complex itself, then any form of the feeling of inferiority may lead 
people to fabricate defense mechanisms. Until one has his attention called 
to this fact, he probably never realizes how much conscious behavior 
of normal people is motivated by the wish to defend the ego against the 
feeling of inferiority. Mcuh ambition, the wish to be important, moral 
reform, social unrest, even race riots, should be regarded as defense 
mechanism. 


55 


The second type of mechanism fabricated by the unconscious 
might be called the mechanism of compensation. Whenever there 
is a psychic loss of any kind, the unconscious seeks imaginary or 
fictitious goods to put in the place of those lost. Thus, one who has 
a serious defect in his character may “over compensate” for it by 
going to the other extreme. Illustrations of these mechanisms may 
often be seen in the prudishness of certain people whose excessive 
delicacy on analysis reveals the existence of the very opposite,— 
that is, the prudishness is over compensation for the morbid and in- 
fantile obsession with the obscene. Religion may also be used for 
compensation in this way, as well as many “virtues of extenuation 
and self justification.” Thus, men who live dissolute lives are usually 
very sentimental about their mothers and the corrupt politician is 
frequently over conscientious about domestic morality. 


Third, there is a a type of behavior which has been called the 
mechanism of escape. ‘Thus, when for any reason, people find them- 
selves unable to react adequately to the realities about them or to 
derive satisfaction from the world of facts, they have a tendency to 
substitute for the true meanings of things fictions of their own fab- 
rication. In imagination they strive to “shatter this world to pieces 
and mold it nearer to their hearts’ desire,” thus, “ stone walls do not 
a prison make nor iron bars a cage’ Love is not sex; death is not 
death; but entrance into life eternal; and the wretched struggle for 
existence in civilization is not the inevitable lot of man on earth, but 
is merely contingent upon the existing social system’ and could be 
changed in the twinkling of an eye by the ballot or mass action. 
Most heavens and most utopias are escape mechanisms of this sort. 
Such mechanisms exist in their completest form in the delusions of 
the insane, where reality is completely repudiated and the tortured 
spirit takes refuge in a substitute world of wish-fancies. Often asso- 
ciated with these mechanisms is a phenomenon which Freud calls 
regression, which means that many persons who are fixed, as we 
have said, in earlier emotional forms of response tend when they are 
in difficulty to return in thought to the parent images—usually the 
image of the mother—and to behave as if they were taking refuge in 
the protection of the family circle. 


“Turn backward, turn backward, 
Oh, time, in your flight; 

And make me a child again, 
Just for tonight.”— 


This is a very common wish and it motivates more of our behavior 
than we think. 


Finally, there is what should be called the fact of rationalization. 
Rationalization is not rationality. It is the fabrication by the intellect 
of systems of ideas which render plausible and give specious ex- 
planation or justification to impulses and actions which are really 
determined by the unconscious. Thus a subject who is hypnotized 
may be given a “post hypnotic suggestion.” He may be told, for 
instance, that after he has awakened, say at three o’clock in the after- 


56 


noon, he will go and knock on the door of a fellow-student’s room. At 
three o’clock he is very likely to do this. But he does not remember 
in his waking consciousness the suggestion which was given him 
while under hypnotic influence. Now if the subject is asked why he 
knocks at this particular door at three o’clock, you will find that he 
is fairly sure to have a plausible explanation for his conduct. He 
may say that he wanted to borrow a book or that he remembered 
that he and the student had an engagement which he wished to talk 
over. These explanations are “rationalizations”’ and any behavior 
which is motivated by an unconscious wish is very likely to give rise 
to rationalizations of one sort or another. The delusions of the 
paranoic are rationalizations, and so, also, I regret to say, is the great 
portion of public opinion and of crowd thinking and propaganda. 


Freud’s Place in Psychology. 


In closing, perhaps we should note some of the criticisms of Freud's 
discoveries and beliefs. Most of these criticisms are motivated by 
considerations that have nothing to do with the case. There is, for 
instance, as Freud himself has pointed out, strong objection to him 
because of the resistances which men have to the candid discussion 
of sexual matters. There is often a feeling, therefore, that Freud 
places too much emphasis on sex. Whether he has done so or not 
is a matter to be decided by further study. Certainly on an empirical 
ground and on the basis of the many hundreds of cases with which 
he worked he is justified in giving the explanation which he has given 
of the symptoms of these particular cases. I think much of the 
difficulty concerning this point arises from Freud’s peculiar use of 
the word ‘sexuality.’ He makes it mean almost the entire in- 
stinctive and emotional life. And perhaps such terminology does 
blur distinctions which should be kept clear. Thus the distinction 
between sex and ego is not quite clear in Freud’s work. Dr. John T. 
McCurdy pointed out this fact But Dr. McCurdy’s criticisms are 
quite technical and, moreover, McCurdy retains much of the old in- 
stinct psychology which is today under severe criticism. 


Again Freud has been obliged to use figurative language to ex- 
press some of his concepts. For instance, he speaks of the existence 
of a psychic “censor” between the unconscious wish and conscious- 
ness. I think he should not be taken too literally here. For he is 
dealing with new ideas and should be allowed a great measure of 
freedom in expression. The same, I think, is true of the use of the 
word libido by which he means sexual energy. And I suspect he is 
often led to use the term “unconscious” as if the unconscious were a 
sort of psychic storehouse rather than a term by which are expressed 
behavior trends and processes which are not accompanied by full 
awareness. Freud himself has modified his earlier theory that ab- 
normal mental life is due to a shock, or “ trauma,” and that the symptoms 
may all be removed by “catharsis.” A discussion of this point would 
lead us to the medical side of the Freudian psychology and this is 
not the object of our present interest. 


Freud has given us on the whole a new view of human person- 
ality. He shows that the self of each of us is wider and richer than 


97 


we had thought before, and that we retain vestiges of primitive life 
even in our highest and most civilized thought and behavior. He has 
shown us the role that fictions and wish-fancies play in fixing the 
destiny of man. He has given us a new kind of determinism, not the 
old mechanism of the brain physiology. He has pointed out in a very 
helpful way the causal connection that exists among ideas them- 
selves and in the sequence of events in which men play an active 
part. His influence on the whole is on the side of wholesome self- 
criticism, which is a true educational aim, and it also makes for a 
more decent candor in society. In social philosophy he has provided 
us with a criterion by which we may know when people are seeking 
to solve problems and are really working for better order of things 
and when their behavior is merely motivated by a wish to solve their 
inner conflicts, save their faces, and substitute for the realities in life 
a system of fancies and fictions. Freud has given a most significant 
discovery in a realm where new knowledge is most needed, and is 
most important. The world is looking to psychology today as never 
before for the answer to some of the deepest questions of our lives. 
Freud, it seems to me, has gone further to provide us with a method 
of answering these questions than has anyone else in our times, 





LECTURE V 
What Psychologists think about Consciousness. 





WHAT PSYCHOLOGISTS THINK ABOUT 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


have sought throughout the previous lectures to avoid the use of the 
word “ consciousness,” because to many psychologists “ conscious- 
ness” is a bad word. They think it is mystical and unscientific and ob- 
solete. Therefore, before we could use it we should have to make up our 
minds whether we have, psychologically speaking, the right to use it. For 
as a matter of fact the problem of consciousness is a very much debated 
problem among contemporary psychologists. You may think it is foolish 
to ask the question whether we should include consciousness in a scientific 
study of the human mind or of human behavior. 

You might say, “ Why ask whether we are conscious or not? Of 
course we are conscious. Whoever doubts that he is conscious?” One 
would have to be conscious in order to doubt his consciousness. We know 
the difference between a man who is awake and aware of things and 
one who is unconscious because he is under the influence of some anesthetic 
or because he has fainted or is asleep. And we know the difference, too, 
in our own behavior between that which is accompanied by consciousness 
and that which is not. Something may be in your environment; may 
have been there all the time; playing upon your organism and you may 
suddenly give it your attention. You will say, “I was not conscious 
of that; now I am.” Why shouldn’t we just take the whole problem 
on that perfectly obvious and simple, straight-forward basis? 

Well, the problem is not quite so simple as it appears. What do you 
mean by consciousness? Do you mean, let us say, that something comes 
from outside things into your mind? Or is our consciousness something 
that stays entirely within the mind? When we are conscious just what 
is it that we are conscious of? Are we conscious of objects in the 
outside world or only conscious of our subjective images of those objects? 
And if we start with the inner images of consciousness, then how are 
we ever going to get into the outside world, and if we start with the 
facts of the outside world, of which we say we are conscious, how are 
we ever going to show that those facts have some kind of capacity in 
themselves to sum themselves up and make themselves our personal con- 
sciousness? If you are conscious, are you conscious that you are conscious ? 
Surely it would be a strange thing if we were conscious and not aware 
of the fact. 

Yet, William James says if we have to be conscious that we are con- 
scious in order to be conscious, we might just as well say we have to dream 
that we dream in order to dream or to swear that we swear in order to 
swear. 

“Consciousness” troubles scientists especially because it seems to 
upset the rational order of things. Scientists like to have things explained 
in terms of cause and effect. They like to establish a logical sequence 
beginning with the atom or with the planetary system or nebula, and 
like to show that between the largest and smallest facts of our world 
there can be built up a definite scientific order. Consciousness seems to 
break into this order from some outside world to upset our calculations, 
and bring in another kind of causation. 


[61] 


b 


62 


Some scholars who are particularly mechanistic would like to get rid of 
the whole problem by thrusting it out of the door. Others who are more 
or less willing to accept a haphazard view of the universe are not 
greatly bothered by the problem. Others who take a spiritualistic view, 
those who might be called “ mystics,” are inclined to put great emphasis 
upon consciousness and hold it sacred. 

There is to-day, therefore, among psychologists a very great confusion 
and debate over the question. Some, like Woodworth, allow the fact of 
consciousness, but they are inclined to try, just as far as they can, to 
minimize its importance and to explain psychology in other terms. Others, 
like the Titchenor group, isolate consciousness and try to study it as if 
it were the solar spectrum. And others, like Dewey, are inclined to say, 
that we should not spell consciousness with a capital ““C”; or hold it 
to be any particular thing, but say that some facts of behavior indicate 
that the subject has foreknowledge of events. Others, like McDougall, 
seek to base belief in consciousness on some animistic or mysterious ele- 
ment which you might call the “soul.” Finally there are those who, like 
Watson, simply dismiss the question. They are not interested in it, assert- 
ing that it has no scientific significance whatsoever. 

So you see psychology to-day is in a very curious situation regarding 
what most of us, as laymen, and many psychologists would say, also, is 
the basic fact of psychology. Woodworth and others would have no 
hesitancy in saying that psychology is the science of those conscious pro- 
cesses which we call experience. Dr. John B. Watson says, that psychology 
is the science of behavior and leaves consciousness entirely out. He 
has troubled a great many scholars. This development in psychology is 
known as Behaviorism. 

Now, to leave consciousness out of the science doesn’t necessarily 
mean to deny its existence, but to leave it out and at the same time to 
assert that it is existent and that it is important, would be greatly 
to limit the scope of psychology for the sake of a method. 


Four Theories About Consciousness. 

I wish, briefly, to sketch out four prevailing views of consciousness 
and then we will discuss them and see what we can make out of them. 

We were in an earlier lecture discussing the relation of the mind 
to the body. I said that there was in psychology a traditional view called 
parallelism, according to which mental and physical processes form two 
separate and distinct streams of events, neither of which influences the 
other. Here is the body with all its movements, the whole physiological- 
organic process of our growth, the organ movements and the disturbances 
in the nervous tissues are all purely physical, and might be conceivably 
expressed in mechanical terms. 

Then there is here the stream of consciousness, and this stream of 
consciousness runs right along side the other—a one-to-one correspondence. 
Suppose you say that consciousness depends upon or is accompanied by, 
as James would have said, brain changes, so that for every impulse of 
consciousness; for every complicated fact of it, there is a corresponding 
complicated movement in the particles of our nervous system. Therefore, 
there is an absolute correspondence. This way of looking at the relation 
of consciousness to physical processes would be called the parallelist theory 
of consciousness. 


63 


According to the parallelist theory, they are two streams of events 
and they are absolutely separate; they have nothing to do with each other. 
And in one place, on page 182 of his Principles of Psychology, James 
seems to hold just such a view, saying, that we must not confuse physio- 
logical facts of brain change with the facts of consciousness, and that 
when we do so, he says, we are confusing two worlds. 


There is a second view of consciousness which is called the interaction- 
ist view. According to this view, these two processes are not absolutely 
separate, but that though they run along fairly well together they influence 
each other, as, you might say, two magnetic currents might draw together 
and repel each other; the body might influence mind and mind influence 
body in such a way that the two streams or processes interact, hence, 
the word interactionism is used to describe that view. 


Then, in the third place, there is a view which I hardly know how 
to name, the view of Prof. Sigmund Freud. Dr. Freud’s view might 
be called the focal view, that is, he holds that consciousness is only a 
small part and a rather incidental part of the mind or the psyche. The 
greater part of the mental life of man goes on unconsciously. It is located 
in the deep centers of his nervous system where it is protected from 
too much stimulus and too great disturbance. This deep location of the 
memory traces of our life and our inherited impulses in our lower nerve 
centers he calls the “unconscious.” There is a small portion of our 
response to stimulus which is lighted up and is conscious under certain 
circumstances. Consciousness is located, he thinks, in the cerebral cortex, 
or the gray matter, on the convoluted surface of the cerebral hemispheres 
of the brain. 


He says that through a process of evolution this surface of the brain 
developed from a primal surface of the living cell. It has always been 
very greatly exposed to stimuli; it has been played upon so many times 
that all capacity to remember has been taken out of it; it doesn’t retain 
and therefore it acts instantly and its instantaneous action is consciousness. 
Therefore he would hold that the memory traces and deeper facts of 
mental life are retained by the unconscious in the lower levels of the 
brain and the nervous system. The difficulty with Freud’s view, to my 
mind, is that it is very fanciful, that it is not provable, and that it is 
an hypothesis which is hardly in accord with the facts. or instance, 
when you are conscious, if you are, obviously you don’t merely gaze at 
things blankly and let them make their impressions on you; you don’t 
merely receive impressions. Consciousness is an active thing, if it exists 
at all. What we do is to contribute something out of our own thought 
processes, out of our memory. We should have no knowledge of anything 
if we didn’t contribute to our awareness of objects some elements of 
our past experience. And therefore if we are going to limit consciousness 
to the mere reception of stimuli in the present moment, we have only what 
Santayana calls the merest elements of mental life, “essences,” about 
which you can say nothing; you can’t even say they exist. 


Surely this would not be a very fruitful hypothesis. I have no 
quarrel with Freud’s theory of the unconscious. I merely say this 
particular attempt to explain consciousness seems to me not quite in 
accord with the facts. 


64 


The fourth view of mental life or of consciousness would, of 
course, be the extreme behaviorist view which is, as I stated a minute 
ago, “out with it all.” Let us study simply the kind of responses 
that organisms make when we stimulate them, let us leave out en- 
tirely the whole question of “consciousness.” Watson would even 
say that it is a “spook,” unnecessary in science and only confusing. 


A Criticism of the Theories of Consciousness. 


Let us examine these various views and see if we can wholly dis- 
pense with the notion of consciousness. First, let us discuss the 
parallelist theory. 

If physiological processes move on one level and conscious 
stream moves on another level, and if neither one ever has anything 
to do with the other, a second problem is raised and that is by what 
providential arrangement do these distinct processes correspond so 
closely. It is rather. wonderful that by some kind of “ pre-established 
harmony” that for every physical state there is a certain mental state. 
Some scholars say that consciousness is produced by the physical 
stream; in other words, the physical is the cause of consciousness. 
Hence, consciousness is mechanically determined by physical pro- 
cesses. This view, James called, following Huxley and Clifford, the 
conscious automaton theory. 

Let us look at this theory and see what it makes of consciousness. 
It makes consciousness what has been called an epiphenomenon,; that 
is, consciousness has no more to do with life according to this theory 
than the white mark left by a piece of chalk has to do with determin- 
ing my making the mark. Our conscious life is like the phosphor- 
escent streak left on a dark wall after somebody scratches a match; 
it has nothing to do with the scratching of the match; it produces no 
effects. It is, itself, merely an effect and therefore cannot effect a 
thing in the material world. 


Each movement of our body, each change in the nervous tissue, 
each nervous discharge, is the effect not of an idea, it is the effect 
of the preceding or of some preceding bodily movement. If one 
bodily movement causes the next bodily movement, then we do not 
need mind to explain any bodily movement. 

Or, to put the thing a little differently, there is the illustration 
which James quotes: “ Let us assume that an idea can intervene be- 
tween bodily movements and effect something.” You might as well 
say, here is a train of cars. The first two cars are coupled together 
with an iron bar and the last two are coupled together with an iron 
bar, and the cars are coupled to the engine with an iron bar, but 
mystics want the middle two cars to be coupled not by an iron bar 
but by the sentiment of good will that exists between the engineer 
and the conductor. Thus, the intervention of an idea between our 
bodily movements, which are purely material movements, would be 
exactly like trying to couple cars with good will. 

Therefore, consciousness is purely an epiphenomenon, or useless 
by-product. This is probably the theory of most materialists, or 
mechanists. It is often announced as a very late discovery. As a 
matter of fact it is an old view and was best stated by Huxley a 
generation ago. 


69 


James asked two questions about this theory which I think are 
pertinent. James asks, “If consciousness has nothing to do with the 
behavior of an organism, if it is like the phosphorescent glow that 
comes after it, how did it ever happen to be evolved in the struggle 
for existence?” We know that animal species in the process of 
evolution tend to preserve those characteristics which work to their 
advantage in the struggle for existence Now, it seems that the higher 
organisms have the most consciousness. If that is true, how could 
the higher organisms be endowed with such consciousness if con- 
sciousness had no survival value? And if consciousness effects 
nothing, of course, it has no survival value. James says, “Isn’t it 
strange that it should have nothing to do with the matters which it 
so closely attends?” It is merely a fact of biology that the creatures 
which happen to have the most consciousness have succeeded 
in the struggle for existence. Therefore, it would seem that con- 
sciousness has survival value; and if it has survival value, it would 
seem that it must in some way have something to do with life. 
Secondly, James says, that pleasure and pain seem to be connected 
with the survival of an organism. In other words, on the whole, 
evolution has weeded out those organisms which take pleasure in 
things which tend to destroy them. Ordinarily, pleasure seems to 
be associated with those actions which make for the welfare of an 
organism and the species, If feelings of pleasure and pain have 
nothing to do with this behavior, as they could not if consciousness 
had nothing to do with it, then, obviously we should have to explain 
why destructive acts are painful and helpful acts, on the whole, are 
pleasurable. Pleasure and pain do seem to be working principles, 
if you look at the behavior of organisms in relation to their en- 
vironment—hence consciousness. 


I think this is a fairly good answer to the “automaton theory,” 
and that James has not been wholly answered by the mechanists. 
Consciousness and feelings of pleasure and pain seem, on the showing 
of the biological facts, to have some survival value. Therefore, they 
must lead to actions which are advantageous; and therefore, they must 
have something to do with determining bodily movements. 


I wish now to discuss behaviorism in the light of the automaton 
theory. The behaviorist is opposed to what he calls “ interaction- 
ism.” He, too, is inclined to think that consciousness affects nothing. 
He wouldn’t throw it out of all consideration if he thought that it 
did achieve results in the material world. In other words, the be- 
haviorist, himself, though he objects to the parallelist theory in 
psychology, really presupposes it. His denunciation of the notion of 
consciousness can be pushed back in to the old automaton theory, and 
that theory really presupposes the parallelist view. If the behavior- 
ist didn’t have in the back of his head the notion that consciousness 
is a thing in itself, or a process dis-associated from other processes, 
he wouldn’t raise the question as to how you can get those two 
processes together. He wouldn’t discard consciousness if he didn’t 
believe, in the first place, unconsciously, that consciousness is a 
mysterious thing which intervenes in the process of behavior. 


66 


Suppose, instead of regarding consciousness and the physiological 
processes as two things, one said, “ We will simply study the be- 
havior of organisms and when we do we probably shall find that 
some of them, human beings, sometimes behave as if they knew 
what they were dog. In other words, consciousness, instead of be- 
ing a stream outside of the process of physiological change, is simply 
a characteristic of some facts of organic behavior. Instead of holding 
it to be something that goes on on another level and sometimes 
drops into our behavior from the outside, why shouldn’t we say that 
it is simply a characteristic of some facts of organic behavior? 


Now, let us see if, with that view in mind, we can get anywhere. 
I think that all the confusion regarding consciousness is due to the 
fact that you can’t get anywhere on the parallelist or the old inter- 
actionist theory. I am not arguing for interactionism; I am sug- 
gesting that we give up entirely the way in which the problem has 
been stated. My belief is that behaviorism has here failed to state 
its own case. Let us see, what case can be made for the view I just 
stated, that sometimes human beings seem to behave as if they were 
aware of what they were doing, A simple reflex may occur auto- 
matically. But is it possible there are some facts of human behavior 
that, viewed purely from the outside as a behaviorist would view them, 
make it necessary for us to take into account the hypothesis that the 
person has consciousness in order that we may give an adequate ex- 
planation of his behavior? May we not have to assume that the 
hypothesis of consciousness will fit some facts of behavior better 
than any other? 


It seems to me that a psychology without consciousness fails to 
take into account or to explain some of the more complicated facts 
of behavior. I refer to the behavior which seems to show fore-know- 
ledge of events. I believe that if I can show that some facts of be- 
havior cannot be explained unless we assume that the person doing 
certain things has fore-knowledge of the results of his actions, then 
such behavior (demanding fore-knowledge) means that conscious- 
ness enters into behavior and makes a difference in the bodily move- 
ments of the organism. 


I once heard a great behaviorist say, “If consciousness can have 
anything to do with determining the movements of your body and there- 
fore have any effect on behavior, this world would be absolutely topsy- 
turvy. You might as well say that you can crook your finger at a 
billiard ball on a table and it would come to you.” If consciousness can, 
as we would say, intervene from some outside world and cause a movement 
in my body which is a movement in the material world, and if that move- 
ment is not in some way determined by previous bodily movements, then 
your ideas get mixed up with the course of forces in the material world 
just as truly as if a billiard ball would roll to you if you crooked your 
finger at it. 


But, you can make some physical bodies move to you by crooking 
your finger at them. You can crook your finger at a dog and he may 
come to you, and he is just as material an object as a billiard ball. What 
is the difference between the dog and the billiard ball? The difference 


67 


is this: the billiard ball won’t come to me because something from without 
it must furnish the energy which makes it move. But the dog may come 
to me because the dog furnishes his own energy when he moves. 


Now, on any hypothesis, all organic response to stimulus is release 
of energy from within the organism. So here we have a very great 
difference. One of these objects moves mechanically because it must get 
the energy by which it moves from outside itself; the other has that 
energy stored up in itself and will release it when it is stimulated in 
certain ways. And I am not sure the stimulus in all cases doesn’t involve 
some kind of consciousness. 


Is it possible that a man, organized as a dog is so that he furnishes 
his own energy for his bodily movements, can make some bodily move- 
ments which are just as material as the dog’s or the billiard ball’s, yet 
can make such bodily movements as intervene in the processes of the 
environment around him so as to make one set of events happen rather 
than another? If he can, and if he knows what he is doing, then con- 
sciousness does have effect in the material world, though it may not 
intervene from without. What I am trying to say is that an organism 
like man may make a bodily movement, which bodily movement intervenes 
in the course of events, and that the bodily movement also may be a 
release of his own energy. It may be explainable only on the ground 
that when he released that energy and made that movement, he knew 
what the effects of the series of mechanical changes in his environment 
were going to be before they occurred. 


Behaviorism says that mental life is response to stimulus. Stimulus 
was too simple a word and the behaviorists substituted the word 
“ situation.” 


Now, here is a situation around me this afternoon. It is Friday 
and I am to give a lecture to-night. I sit down to write the lecture. 
What am I doing? Am I responding to a situation that is really not 
present? Is there anything necessarily in the situation this afternoon 
in my library that can determine my behavior in writing that lecture? 
Yes, I am in the habit of sitting there. If I sit at the table, I am likely: 
to write a lecture. So habit does have something to do with it. But I don’t 
write lectures merely because I have a habit of writing them. I also write 
lectures with this audience and this evening definitely in mind. That fact 
is something which doesn’t exist in my library. This audience, this 
evening, and this event are hours ahead. In other words, I am this after- 
noon in a certain situation in the material world. Here in my library 
in'a material world there is a material situation to which I am 
responding. I respond to that situation in a certain way, because I am 
in the habit of responding to it in a certain way and I begin to write 
a lecture, because I am in the place, but, also, there is another element 
there and that is this: Let us say it is one o’clock when I begin. I am 
writing the lecture to give it at 8:15 o’clock. Certainly my fore-knowledge 
of what is going to happen at 8:15 to-night has something to do with my 
behavior at one o’clock. You couldn’t explain my sitting there writing 
that lecture on any other hypothesis than that I was partly responding 
to a situation that did not exist and couldn’t exist for seven hours 


afterwards. 


68 


For Knowledge Implies Effective Consciousness of Some Sort. 


That is my point. My behavior is a response not merely to the 
situation which is physically present here, but my behavior is also in 
large measure a response to a situation that at that time did not exist in 
the material world, and could not have existed in the material world for 
seven hours afterwards. If an organism’s behavior can only be explained 
by taking into account the fact that its behavior is a response to things 
which do not yet exist in the material world, and if one couldn’t say that 
such behavior was adequate behavior unless he did take future events into 
account, then some sort of awareness or consciousness is necessary if we 
are to give an account of much human conduct. If I didn’t know I was 
going to write this lecture and I sat there scribbling away and you asked 
me what I am doing, and I said, “J have the habit,” you would say that 
my behavior was psychopathic. 


In fact, psychopathic behavior in many of its phases is precisely 
characterized by the fact that an individual, automatically, mechanically 
performs habits in situations where such habits are irrelevant, because 
they are not adjustments to future ends. You must take into account the 
fact that human beings adjust themselves to and foresee future results 
before they occur. I don’t think my behavior brings into the natural 
world anything that isn’t there. It doesn’t bring in any mysterious spook 
of consciousness. What do I bring in that isn’t there? I bring eight 
o’clock into the situation at one o’clock. Eight o’clock doesn’t exist in the 
material world; nevertheless, I bring foreseen results of eight o’clock into 
the situation at one o'clock. 


Now, an organism which can do that can foresee future events and 
you cannot explain its behavior on any other basis than that such an 
organism is conscious. In other words, it is the deliberative, calculating, 
conscious, foreseeing of something that doesn’t exist in the world. 
A conscious being is making purely mechanical movements which set going 
a certain series of events which lead to a foreseen end. The movements 
which I make in writing are purely mechanical, and I suppose if one 
wanted to confine his attention to such facts, it is conceivable that he 
might trace a series straight through the material world, and would find 
that every step in that material world, every link in that whole series 
of causes and effects did have and was conditioned by its predecessor. 
But the curious thing is that even though there be a consistent series, 
something has manipulated that series at certain points where alternatives 
are possible, and in such a way that one possible series of events occurs 
rather than another. 


What does the solving of a problem mean? It means that you 
associate in your own thinking two or more factors in the world which 
have not been associated before. There may be nothing in either one of 
them considered in itself which necessarily demands that it should be 
associated with the other. 


The other day a young man came into our office and wanted to talk 
to me. He had decided to become a medical student. He is now in 
college. He is very much interested in certain studies. All his tenden- 
cies, his habits, his mental interests would lead him to go on with those 
studies and he came in to ask me if I would help him solve a problem. 


69 


It was whether, if he gave the time to attend the lectures at Cooper 
Union, he could get his college degree; and if he didn’t get his college 
degree he wanted to know if he could enter a medical school. See what 
he was doing? He was making a decision which would change his behavior 
in the material world because of some end which is four years hence. 
His behavior is finally settled by a calculation. He calculates the amount 
of time that he must give each week to his college studies and on the 
basis of that pure, mathematical calculation, plus an end which is yet four 
years out of existence, his behavior to-night is determined, because he is 
at home studying. You can’t explain that man’s absence this evening, 
taking the whole situation into account, on any other theory than that his 
choice of means was determined, if you want to put it that way, by 
factors which do not yet exist in the material world, but which will 
exist and that he gives deliberate, conscious, rational attention to those 
factors. I don’t see how, therefore, you can explain the great part of 
human behavior unless you take into account the fact that we are some- 
times reacting to situations which have absent stimuli in them, and some 
of these absent stimuli are not merely in the present situation, but are 
existing as futures which are foreseen. 


I could go into this much farther and show that all I have said 
applies to language habits or sub-vocal talking which Dr. Watson calls 
thinking, and show again that sub-vocal talking or thinking has absolutely 
no reason for existence if it is merely mumbling things we have learned 
in the past. Thinking has significance only if in some way it orients 
us to situations which we have to face in the future; if in some way it 
guides our behavior now so that things which we want may occur and 
things which we don’t want won’t occur. This matter we discuss in the 
lecture on habit. 


In the chapter on the Stream of Thought, in the large work on 
psychology by William James, “ The Principles of Psychology,” the discus- 
sion is really about consciousness. James makes four or five propositions 
about it. He says, for instance, that our consciousness is a sort of stream, 
but I don’t think he means at all the parallelistic or interactionist point 
of view; he means what we have just talked about. He says, “ Every 
thought exists in some personal consciousness.” Second, “ Thought is 
always changing.” ‘That, when James announced it, was a rather revolu- 
tionary idea. Every thought exists in some head. Consciousness is per- 
sonal. There are no impersonal thoughts. There is no sharing of thoughts. 
There are no thoughts in books. There are no thoughts in institutions. 
There are no thoughts in traditions. Thoughts exist only where they are 
thought, in individual heads. There is no communication of ideas. 
Thoughts do not jump out of my head and into yours when I am talking. 
That would be an indecent thing for them to do. Where would they 
be during the time when they had left my head and before they got 
into yours, and what would they be doing, and what would they be 
thinking ? 

Hence there can be no collective mind nor group mind. If this 
is true, what we have in books is only little symbols suggesting 
cerebral processes which in some way excite thoughts in us as in- 
dividuals. There can be no two people who have the same thought. 
Absolute pluralism and individualism is the case. 


70 


What we call society is not a thing, not a spiritual structure, not 
a combination of thoughts and principles and ideas. It is nothing 
in the world but our habits of behaving together, and there are no 
everlasting truths, no eternal verities, but situations that have to be 
met in a certain way. 


“Secondly, consciousness is always changing, “says James. 
You never get the same thought twice. We think we do; we talk 
about getting an idea and keeping our ideas as if we could hold 
them through life. Every successive thought about the same object 
is thought in a modified brain with a modified experience. It is 
thought in different connections and is a different thought. Again 
there are no permanently existing truths, no permanently existing 
ideas for us. .They have to be recreated all the time. When 
we remember things we aren’t storing thoughts up as a postmaster 
might put letters in a pigeon hole of a post-office to pull them out 
when somebody comes and gives the right name. Ideas are not 
stored up in memory. Ideas are functions of our nervous organiza- 
tions which are stimulated just as behaviorists would say they are. 
But they are always different and new, and our whole life is everlast- 
ingly irreducible to mechanical formulae. 


Then, again, James says, “ Thought is continuous.” Your thought 
always couples on to your previous thought and by some strange fact 
never gets coupled to anybody else’s previous thought. You wake 
up in the morning and your thought comes to the same stream that 
you were in when you went to sleep. You hear a crash of thunder 
but nevertheless that crash couples itself on to the previous silence. 
James gave us a psychological truth which I think has much to do 
with all thinking. “The objects of the world are discontinuous.” 
They are cut apart; moving all about. Our thought seems to unite 
them for certain purposes. James says, “ We have a feeling of ‘if’ 
and a feeling of ‘and’ and a feeling of ‘wherefore’ and ‘why’ and 
an intention to say something,” all of which means that about every 
one of our thoughts is a fringe which makes it move on to the next 
thought. The stream of our life is a continuous flow, and perhaps 
this is where we get the sense of personal indentity which the old 
philosopher sought in abstract principles. 


Finally, “our thought is more concerned about some parts of 
its object than it is about others, or consciousness is partial.’ We 
are not concerned about the whole situation. In a@ whole object be- 
fore us, we are interested only in some aspects of it. “And, therefore, 
consciousness,’ says James, “makes us interested spectators in the 
game of life.” Its function is to select and to choose. 


Consciousness, therefore, is a fact of the organism’s behavior and 
has to do with interest. Because we can feel pleasure and pain we 
are more concerned about some aspects of the world than others. 
It is important, biologically, that such should be the case. If we 
were equally interested in all things, we could not survive. We have 
to pursue the lines of our interest, because they are on the whole the 
lines of our survival and of our welfare. An organism therefore 


71 


seems to be equipped with consciousness, biologically, as a method 
of avoiding the things which injure it and of seeking the things which 
are conducive to its welfare. In other words, consciousness has sur- 
vival value. If so, that is an empirical and scientific fact and should 
be taken into account in psychology. 


* F K K K K K 


f 

Let us sum up, in conclusion, what I have said. Consciousness 
is an important problem in psychology. My belief is that the whole 
mechanistic theory sinks or swims, lives or dies, in regard to this very 
problem. I am making a straight-on challenge to mechanism in psy- 
chology. Behaviorism doesn’t have to be mechanistic and men do 
not become mechanists because they are behaviorists. If a man is a 
mechanist in psychology, it is because he wants to be so for reasons 
that have nothing to do with psychology. 


On the whole, then, there are three views which concern us. 
There is the introspectionist view, according to which consciousness 
is the subject matter of the study of psychology. It exists out of and 
above the material world; it is another kind of being which has been 
strangely coupled, every element of it, with an accompanying bodily 
movement or brain state. According to this theory the subject 
matter for psychological study is the analysis and investigation of this 
supposed higher thing, consciousness. I have tried to show that that 
is a wrong approach to the subject, and I should agree with the be- 
haviorists and say that the introspective method is a survival of a 
pre-scientific age,—a point of view that came before we knew what | 
we now know about physiology and biology. It involves either 
mechanical determination or a metaphysical “divine harmony” between 
thoughts and brain states. 


The second view which we have tried to discuss is the Be- 
haviorist view, which affects to leave consciousness out and explain 
bodily movements merely as response to stimuli. We have tried to 
say that it is perfectly correct as a scientific method to take an ab- 
solutely objective view of human behavior. We would not, any 
more than a behaviorist, wish to spend our time in the introspection 
of a so-called mysterious thing called consciousness, spelled with a 
capital “C.” We would go all the way with the behaviorists on that 
point, but we would say that it is impossible to explain purely be- 
havioristically and objectively some facts of human behavior unless 
you take into account the fact that that organism at certain moments 
is reacting to factors that are not in existence in the present material 
world, but that are foreseen as existing in the material world in some 
future moment of time. 


Dewey puts the case very clearly when he says that the old view of 
consciousness, spelled with a capital “ C,” was just as foolish, whether you 
take a negative attitude toward it as does the behaviorist or a positive 
attitude. One might as well abstract the stomach out of the world where 
food exists and then wonder how stomach and food could ever get 
together belonging to such different worlds. Consciousness as well as 
digestion is a process of the convergence of elements that exist on the 
same level. A mind comes into existence in its positive relation to 


(2 


environment. Dewey says, we do not sit in our environment passive, 
but we are active agents in it. Therefore, mind comes into existence 
when the activity of an organism upon its environment shows that such 
action has been done with foresight of ends. The difference between 
activity with foresight of ends and that which hasn’t it is the difference 
between intelligence and servitude. 


It seems to me one would have to go so far as to deny the very 
existence of organic action, if in the interest of mechanism he were to 
say that this world is so organized that an animal, conscious of pleasure 
and pain, cannot set going certain bodily movements that make for its 
pleasure and avoid pain. In other words, that the animal, to all practical 
intents and purposes, has not a choice. If it has, it is altogether conceiv- 
able that an animal like a human being, having choice, can, if it foresees 
future events, set going other, purely mechanical, material things which 
reach to certain future. Then the futures of men are not wholly 
and mechanically determined futures. Alternative and choice are the 
basis of mental life. I do not see how anybody can write a psychology, 
take in all the facts of human behavior, treat them squarely, and ignore 
the fact that man is a choosing animal. 


LECTURE VI 
The Fatality of Habits. 








THE FATALITY OF HABITS. 


F THE old saying that we are creatures of habit means that we are 
merely creations or victims of our habits, the saying is a half truth. 
I wish to show in this lecture that we are also, at least to an extent which 
is psychologically important, creators of our habits. And to that extent, 
I suppose it should be said we are creators of ourselves. We are in 
large measure what our habits are. Aside from the purely instinctive 
and native endowment of man, the whole mental life of every one of us 
has to be achieved. 


The Importance of Habits. 


A few years ago psychologists were inclined to give more importance 
to instinct than they do today. It is seen now that even instinct patterns, 
that is, the modes of response which an individual inherits, very soon be- 
come overlaid with acquired modes of response, and acquired modes of 
response are habits. Undoubtedly, we come into this world with varying 
types of inheritance. Our very intellectual differences in the end amount 
to an hereditary difference in acquiring and retaining habits. James says 
that when we look on living creatures from the outward point of view 
(and this certainly applies to mankind) one of the first things that strikes 
us is that they are bundles of habits. Watson says the hereditary pattern 
acts fade into insignificance so far as concerns their number and com- 
plexity. He also says that in acquired activity one and the same object 
can call forth from an educated man literally hundreds of different actions, 
depending upon slight differences of setting or upon his needs of the 
moment. He bids us think of the number of activities that can be called 
out from one and the same individual by a piece of lumber, leather, 
stone, marble or metal. Notice that the infant has very few responses 
to these things. About all it can do with an object is to clutch it, try 
to put it into its mouth, turn it over, look at it, and throw it down. The 
difference between the infant and the educated man is the difference in 
the achievement of habits. Dewey says that our habits are our wills. 
He says that the medium of habit filters all the material that reaches our 
perception and thought. . ., . “ Reason pure of all information from 
prior habit is a fiction. . . . To be able to single out a definity of 
sensory element in any field is evidence of a high degree of previous 
training, that is, of well-formed habits. . . . Only the men whose 
habits are already good can know what the good is. . . . The essence 
of habit is an acquired predisposition to ways or modes of response, 
not to particular acts except as under special conditions. This expresses 
a way of behavior. Habit means special sensitiveness or accessibility to 
certain classes of stimuli, standing predilections and aversions rather than 
bare recurrences of specific acts. It means will.” 


In other words, Dewey means that habit is a developed tendency 
to act in certain directions. This, of course, is just what will is. So, 
in the psychological sense, we are today chiefly the habit tendencies which 
we have acquired. And the difference between normal and abnormal 
mental life is really a matter of habits. It would be quite correct to say 
that neurotic behavior and all the forms of mental maladjustment are 


[75] 


76 


really due to the fact that certain individuals have developed habits which 
are harmful to themselves and others. So you see habits of thought are 
just as important as habits of action; probably more so. Show me how 
a man habitually thinks and I can tell to an extent what he will do in a 
given situation. 


We should add further that society itself consists of habits, primarily. 
People sometimes think of society as a mysterious thing-in-itself or a 
superpersonal being. Society may be well defined as the sum total of 
our habits of behaving together. What are all the customs, institutions 
and traditions which go to make up society but habits? Many of these 
habits were developed thousands of years ago and they were taught by 
elders to their descendants for many generations. Hence, one becomes 
civilized when he has learned certain habits. Education is not merely 
giving people information. Education is the formation of those habits 
which enable an individual to react adequately to real situations. 


So important then is habit that many writers cannot resist preaching 
or moralizing about the subject to some degree. James, in the famous 
chapter on Habit in the “ Principles of Psychology,” was unable to resist 
this temptation to adorn his tale with a moral. This was excusable on 
James’s part because he was a teacher of youth and was deeply concerned 
about developing among his students habits of study. Our interest, how- 
ever, is to understand human nature. We wish to know if man is merely 
the sum-total of what he has learned, and if in learning he must be passive 
in the grip of his environment. The subject of habit is treated by 
Watson in two ways: Acquiring bodily habits or learning, and the 
retention of bodily habits or memory. 


Habit and the Psychology of Learning. 


Learning is of all kinds. But whether one learns to play a game, 
to walk, or to talk, or to think it is nothing other than habit formation. 
Woodworth and others give us some insight into different kinds of learning 
and habit formation. There is the learning which is merely the strengthen- 
ing of reflex. Watson says that in habit formation to new movements are 
required. There are enough present at birth to combine into complex 
unitary acts. The new or learned element in habit is the tying together 
or integration of separate movements in such a way as to produce a new 
unitary act. Woodworth gives various illustrations as to how a simple 
reflex movement may be improved or strengthened by learning. He says 
that if grains are thrown before a chick one day old, it will instinctively 
strike at them and seize them with its bill. But its aim is so poor and 
uncertain at first that it only gets one-fifth of the grains that it strikes at. 
On the second day it is able to get half, and after two or three days it 
is able to get three-fourths. After ten days of practice, the little chick 
is able to get 85%, and that is the limit of its perfection. It apparently 
can learn to do no better than this. 


A similar illustration of learning among humans is given by Watson 
in his account of the way in which people learn to shoot with a bow and 
arrow. He says that in one group studied twenty persons were selected. 
The arrow was shot at a target four feet in diameter and about forty yards 
away. The average of the first round of twenty shots was 56.9 inches 


77 


from the bull’s eye. After 360 shots were given the average was 27.1 
inches. He says the process of learning might have gone on until the 
average would be about 11 inches after a few more shots. Beyond that, 
only the exceptional person could go. The interesting thing about this 
learning process is that the improvement is very rapid at first; then there 
follows a long period when additional practice does not seem to bring 
improvement. After this, there may be other periods of improvement, 
each followed by a static period. These static periods in which improve- 
ment does not occur are called plateaux. There are also shorter periods 
of improvement which are called resting places. 


Now people seem to differ somewhat in respect to these plateaux or 
levels of learning which they reach. Some people may improve very 
rapidly, and reach a plateau on which they seem to be fixed for a long 
time. Others may improve more slowly at first but reach a plateau that 
is really a higher level of achievement though they reach it later. In both 
cases, undoubtedly under special conditions further improvement would 
be possible. But it would probably be due to formation of collateral 
and new habits which assisted earlier ones (I will explain these habits 
later), rather than to a strengthening or perfecting of the original reflex 
movements. I think if you will study yourself you will see that you 
reach one of these plateaux in some kinds of learning much more easily 
than you will in others. At least, I find that to be so myself. In trying 
to learn to play golf I reached a certain score very early and after that 
was unable to improve upon it. The same is true in my case in learning 
to use the typewriter. Yet strangely enough with much less practice I 
developed a greater degree of proficiency in the use of an axe or rifle. 
Just why such differences occur I don’t know, but they do occur in the 
learning processes of all of us. 


There are some things that are apparently not our game. And per- 
haps we should be conserving our energies and expending them to greater 
advantage, if in some way we could learn what is our game and what 
is not. A group of psychologists who have sought to put the science at 
the service of industry have tried working upon this matter. It has some 
value for vocational guidance. 


Another type of learning or habit formation would consist in sim- 
plifying movements so that waste motions were cut out. If you watch 
a person who performs any manipulation skillfully, you will see that he 
does it with much less waste motion than does the unskilled. Notice the 
child learning to walk, and you will see an illustration of this. A very 
common illustration is to be found in watching people learning to swim. 
How much more effort a new swimmer puts forth in learning to keep 
afloat than he really needs! The infant learning to use its hands makes 
all sorts of random movements and its learning may be said to consist 
in the elimination of the unnecessary motions and the co-ordination of 
the others into certain patterns or series of movements. 


Again, learning consists in the fact that a reflex response may come 
to be attached to a new stimulus, one that does not naturally arouse it. 
The substitute response of this nature is the same as the conditioned 
reflex which we have noticed before. Watson says that this is the way 
in which most people learn to be afraid of objects. He says that the 


78 


only tendencies to fear that he has been able to detect in small children 
were when the child is dropped and when there is a sudden loud noise. 
Now if a rabbit or a white mouse is given the child, the child at first shows 
no fear, but if a loud rasping noise is made at the same time the child 
touches the furry animal, the child will associate the fear of the noise 
with the sight of the rabbit in such a way that subsequently it will 
cry with fear whenever it sees the rabbit. This, of course, is an example 
of the same thing which we referred to in an earlier lecture when we 
were discussing Pawlov’s experimentations with conditioned reflexes in 
the dog. You will remember the instance of the saliva and the bell. When 
the food was shown the hungry dog and the bell was rung at the same time, 
the dog finally would secrete saliva upon hearing the bell without seeing 
the food. A very large part of all our learning consists in the establish- 
ment of conditioned reflexes of this sort. Some systems of reflexes may 
be very complicated, such as learning of a trade or profession. Wood- 
worth gives a few of the simpler conditioned reflexes in the training of 
animals. There is, for instance, the “signal experiment.” A rat is placed 
in a box and there are, let us say, two passages leading out of the box, 
one of which contains food. The rat will explore the box for 
a while and finally learn to go straight to the passage contain- 
ing the food. Here he simply learns to eliminate unnecessary 
movements. But now let the experimentor place at the entrance 
of this passage containing the food a yellow card. For a long time the 
rat does not notice the card at all. Normally I suppose he never would 
associate the card with the food. Now let the experimentor change the 
card and the food to another passage. The rat is perplexed but after 
many trials he learns to enter at once in search of food the passage at 
the entrance of which the yellow card is placed. This is a conditioning 
of the reflex. 


There is also used in the training of animals the “ maze experiment.” 
Woodworth says that the rat is a favorite subject for this experiment 
but that fishes and even crabs have mastered simple mazes. The maze is 
arranged as a labyrinth, the passage through which is rather difficult to 
find. Watson gives us the learning curve of the rat in the maze. At the 
first trial, the rat succeeds in getting out in 29 minutes. At the second 
in 11; the fourth in four; the ninth in 2; the twentieth in 1, after 
which it always required about the same length of time. Woodworth 
shows in comparing animal learning to human learning that a rat will 
find its way through a maze after 53 errors; a child, 35; and a blindfolded 
human adult, 10. Animals may be trained also by the use of a puzzle 
box and other experiments. 


The chimpanzee, according to Woodworth, appears to be the only 
animal which can learn by observation. In other cases, if a trained 
animal is put in the puzzle box with an untrained one, the untrained one 
does not seem to learn the trick of getting out by watching the trained 
one. Even monkeys which are supposed to have a high order of teachability 
and are popularly supposed to have an “ instinct for imitation” do not seem 
to learn in this way. Woodworth, however, quotes experiments made 
with the chimpanzee, which seem to indicate that this animal, like man, 
is an exception. A chimpanzee was taught to secure pieces of banana 
which were put in a tube by pushing them out with a stick. An untrained 


ss 


chimpanzee was then permitted to watch this animal perform the trick, 
and when given the tube immediately reached for the stick and pushed 
out the piece of banana. The ability to learn by observation vastly 
accelerates the process. But even so the learning consists in the strength- 
ening of reflexes, the simplification of movements and the development of 
substitute responses or conditioned reflexes. 


James reduced habit to a strictly physiological basis, saying that the 
“moment one tries to define what habit is, one is led to the fundamental 
proprieties of matter. The laws of nature are nothing but the immutable 
habits which the different elementary sorts of matter follow in their 
actions and reactions upon each other. In the organic world, however, 


habits are more variable than this.” . . . So that “the phenomena 
of habit in living beings are due to the plasticity of the organic materials 
of which their bodies are composed.” . . . “If habits are due to 


the plasticity of materials of outward agents we can immediately see to 
what outward influences if to any the brain matter is plastic.” As the 
brain is carefully shut off from the direct effects of the outer world such 
as mechanical pressure, changes of light and temperature, the only 
impressions that can be made upon it are through the blood and through 
the afferent nerves which enter and end in the brain. These afferent 
nerves bear currents of stimulus of some sort, and as James says, these 
impulses in most cases find their way out in some activity. In getting 
out they leave their-traces in the paths which they make. The only thing 
they can do is to deepen old paths or to make new ones, and the whole 
plasticity of the brain sums itself up in two words when we call it an 
organ in which currents pouring in from the sense organs make with 
extreme facility paths which do not easily disappear. Perhaps this over 
emphasizes the element of fatality. But the problem is how far habit 
shows that man is merely the product of his environment. Is the learning, 
or habit formation, through which one comes to be what he is in mature 
life—effective or ineffective, intelligent or unintelligent, normal or ab- 
normal—is our destiny, in a word, the result of environmental forces 
in which man has merely a passive role? 


Does Habit Make Us Merely the Products of Our Environment? 


The habits which apparently must be the product of the environment 
would be those which are formed involuntarily. I refer to those mechan- 
isms and fixations which make up the unconscious. It would appear that 
the individual in the formation of associations and of various unconscious 
movements exercises no choice in the matter. Yet, Freud has shown 
that each of these unconscious habits has a meaning and that its meaning 
is teleological—that is, it exists for a purpose, even though that purpose 
is not conscious. I call such habits collateral habits. They are often the 
results of other habits which have been consciously formed. And many 
of them seem to be collateral results of our moral education. Moral 
training belongs in the realm of habit formation, like all learning. It is 
of the nature of the conditioned reflex. Now on purely physiological 
grounds the question arises what becomes of that which is left out of 
an original reflex when a response other than that which is the natural 
one is substituted or when an individual learns, as does Pawlov’s dog, 


80 


to respond to a stimulus which has been deliberately implanted in a 
certain reflex movement, from without? Is it not conceivable that the 
old reflex is still there and is lighted up at least in some incipient manner ? 
If so, then it must exist in a repressed condition. So that habit formation 
is a phase of what we saw, when we were discussing his work, Freud, calls 

“repression.” Perhaps our unconscious consists primarily of these broken 
off ends of reflex arcs. 


We are now concerned with the original tendencies which have been 
repressed by the conditional processes of moral education. When the 
child strikes its thumb with a hammer it will howl quite spontaneously. 
But a man suffering in the same way is likely merely to mutter swear 
words. If people get in the way of a child, it is likely to try to push them 
aside. The trained and civilized adult, when he finds himself in a crowd, 
is likely merely to philosophize or to think about the subject of birth- 
control. When a savage sees food he goes and takes it. A civilized 
man enters upon a long process of labor for his living, or he may dream 
of a “return to nature,” or entertain utopian ideals of an imaginary world 
in which there is enough for all without undue labor. Similarly many 
repressions are caused by our education concerning sex. This is quite 
necessary, for the cave-man is out of place in a civilized community. 
But, as we saw, the repressed erotic impulses which otherwise would be 
unconditioned responses to stimulus still have their traces in our organism. 
Many of these repressed impulses are themselves organized into habit 
formations of one kind or another. Some are directed toward socially 
acceptable goals and are, as psycho-analysts say, “ sublimated.” Others 
are organized into all sorts of “fixations” and “compulsions.” The 
technique of psycho-analysis consists very largely of revealing to the 
patient the meaning of such unconscious habits. 


Dr. A. A. Brill sends me the report of a case which I have published 
elsewhere that illustrates how certain of these habits grew up. A young 
woman has a curious habit concerning jewelry. She dislikes to wear 
any jewelry whatever. And on an occasion when she does wear a ring 
or a necklace, she finds that she repeatedly drops it on the floor, and 
often has to spend much time hunting for it. She also has the annoying 
habit of counting up to a hundred and then in 25s. The analysis reveals 
the fact that this whole system of undesirable habits had its origin in an 
incident that had to do with her mother. She wished at one time very 
much to wear a valuable necklace which belonged to her mother. Her 
mother refused and told her that she could have it when she was 100 
years old and her mother dead, or when she herself had a husband to 
buy her a necklace. Now there is nothing in this situation in itself 
which, as an environmental fact, would cause these particular habits to 
appear. Another person might dispose of her repressed psychic impulses 
quite differently, so that, while the environment provides the occasion for 
the formation of certain collateral habits, something in the individual 
himself must contribute to the formation of a specific habit, good or 
bad. This something is probably determined by the individual’s entire 
inner and secret past thought about himself. Much of our ceremonialism, 
both psychopathological and social, as well as religious, consists of such 
habits. The function of ceremonialism in compulsion neurosis has been 


81 


shown to be the wish to purify the psyche, to defend it against certain 
unacceptable tendencies in itself. Hence, “taboo” habits are established, 
none of which could ever be predicted; all of which can be shown to be 
serving a certain purpose which arose in the individual’s past; and hence, 
the individual even in these forms of purely automatic behavior is active 
rather than passive in his relations to his environment. 


This active attitude toward his environment is even more effective 
when we consider the habits which are formed voluntarily. Of course, 
in the psychological laboratory habits may be formed in animals and 
people which though conscious are involuntary. It is a pure assumption 
to say that all habits in daily life are formed in this way. We do seem 
to be able deliberately to acquire certain habits which we wish to cultivate, 
to put ourselves in situations which are conducive to certain kinds of learn- 
ing, and having done so, to cooperate more or less vigorously in the learn- 
ing processes. James made much of this fact in the famous chapter on 
Habit referred to above. He tells students how to proceed with the learn- 
ing process in such a way that they may cooperate most effectively in 
the formation of desirable habits. He says it is important to take 
advantage of certain periods in our own development when habits may 
be easily formed. Just as there is a time when a child learns most 
naturally to speak or walk, so there is a time when it is easiest to learn a 
language or a trade. People who attempt to learn music after they 
have reached a certain age never succeed in becoming virtuosos. So 
James says most of our mannerisms, our professional habits, idiosyncrasies 
in the matter of dress, our daily preferences, become fairly definitely 
fixed before we are twenty-five. Again he says that one seeking to form 
certain habits should make his nervous system his ally. He should make 
the desired behavior as automatic as possible by seizing as many opportuni- 
ties as he can on which to perform the desired action, and he should suffer 
no exceptions until the habit becomes automatic. An illustration of this 
was given me recently by a famous linguist, who learned Spanish in a 
very few weeks. His recipe for learning a language is: Put yourself 
in a community which speaks that language; get a teacher and start talking 
and writing it; and for six weeks do not permit yourself to speak a 
word of any other language. James further suggests that one seeking to 
form a habit, launch himself as vigorously as possible into it, and perform 
a little gratuitous exercise of it every day. 


“ Super Habits.” 


Now the point of all this is that some habits may be deliberately 
acquired; that to learn we must make an effort; and that there is a 
place in such learning for choice. What habits we are to acquire, 
and whether we shall cooperate with our environment or withhold 
that cooperation, seems to rest largely with ourselves. To deny 
this would be to enter into metaphysics. So that we may sum up this 
portion of the discussion with the statement that in the formation of 
habits man is not wholly passive in the grip of his environment but, at 
least so far as some habits are concerned, much depends upon himself. 


I wish now to discuss a question which has great importance in 
the consideration of habits, and that is this: How, on the basis of habit 


82 


which is the stereotyping and the fixation of behavior in certain acquired 
patterns, can one meet new situations? Notice that we have agreed with 
the Behaviorists that all the patterns which are not native and instructive 
are acquired forms of behavior. Are we then merely the sum-total of what 
we have learned or is it possible in our behavior to think originally about 
anything ? 


Watson says there are two kinds of habits, explicit bodily habits and 
implicit bodily habits. It is enough to say that by explicit bodily habits 
he means those movements of our organisms which can be observed by 
an outside observer. And by implicit habits he means those which are 
so delicate and difficult to observe that they would pass unnoticed. Chief 
among the latter he puts sub-vocal talking or thinking. Thinking, to 
Watson, is simply the formation of implicit language habits. Let us glance 
at both the explicit and implicit types of habits to see if one is really a 
victim of either. for instance, the learning of a trade, requiring skill, 
would all be explicit habit, and there is a sense in which Dr. Watson 
is correct when he says that fundamentally thinking is no different from 
any other bodily habit such, for instance, as playing tennis or swimming. 


Woodworth, in discussing the explicit bodily habits, has something in- 
teresting to say about learning telegraphy. It was found that individuals 
reach a certain plateau or degree of skill with practice after a period of 
training and that so long as the effort continues merely to strengthen and 
perfect the reflex movements as such, there is very little increase in speed 
even after tremendous effort in practice. But he says that with some in- 
dividuals there appears quite suddenly an enormous increase in speed and 
efficiency. This higher plateau is not reached by practice but is really at- 
tained by the unconscious formation of new habits. The telegrapher begins 
to think no longer in specific movements nor even in terms of letters, but 
he develops a habit of thinking in terms of words or sometfmes whole 
sentences. This latter habit seems to telescope or short-cut his reflex 
patterns in such a way that there is a great difference between the telegra- 
pher who uses this latter method and one who attempts to attain speed 
and skill merely by practice, a difference which is like that which exists 
between the scholar and the person who in reading has to spell out every 
word. This latter habit I call a super-habit. It always appears in some 
form or other where unusual skill is attained. It is something original 
on the part of the learner, something which has not come about merely 
by practice. It is said that Kreisler in memorizing a sonata has developed 
this super-habit to such a degree that he will quietly sit down and read 
through the whole piece before he ever touches his violin, and then 
will play the sonata through by memory. It is this sort of habit formation, 
something which is not learned from without, that constitutes freedom 
over one’s technique and gives the highest skill. 


Now, are there similar super-habits in the implicit bodily movements 
or sub-vocal talking? I think there are, and that thinking consists in 
something more than merely retaining or repeating what we have been 
taught. Just as the moment comes to the telegrapher when he adds new 
patterns to the process of mere muscular coordination, so in thinking any 
degree of intellectual freedom, or “thinking for oneself,” consists in the 


83 


formation of such habits. Probably the greatest difference among men 
is this difference in habits of thought. There are some minds which 
behave merely like the mechanic who having learned his trade in a 
certain way never can function in any other. Recently a student raised 
the question whether or not a squirrel burying nuts was using intelligence. 
My answer was no, because the squirrel would try to bury nuts on a 
wooden floor if he were taken off the ground. Now there are minds which 
behave in just the same way as does the squirrel. We should all behave 
that way if our mental habits consisted merely in performing the functions 
which we had been taught. There are many persons who practice medi- 
cine and law in this way. The people who vote a party ticket because 
their fathers were members of a certain party, people whose moral life 
never rises above mere convention, and people whose religious life con- 
sists merely in repeating dogmas which they have been taught in childhood, 
are all people of this type. 


Now the difficulty with this type is that, like the squirrel and for that 
matter like every neurotic, “the total reintegration” of the habit pattern 
frequently fails to bring them into effective relationships with the environ- 
ment. The squirrel would be all right if he were always kept in the 
park but his habit of burying nuts is irrelevant when he is placed on the 
wooden floor. So men with squirrel minds, living in what is for us a 
continuously changing environment, are persons whose behavior is for the 
most part irrelevant. “ So in their thinking, men of this type of mind most 
commonly retain old beliefs long after they have ceased to apply to real 
situations and most of their gestures and compulsive movements are mo- 
tivated by considerations that are quite irrelevant to the situations in 
which behavior is demanded of them. 


What is it then that enables some men to meet new situations in new 
ways if not the formation of the super-habits to which I have referred? 
Earlier in this lecture I mentioned the story quoted by Woodworth of 
the chimpanzee watching a trained member of his species get the piece 
of banana out of a tube with a stick. | Woodworth called this learning 
through observation. This is probably too general a term. But it means 
the ability to learn, to be taught something, not merely by long practice 
but by situations which present themselves at the time. What we call 
observation consists first in an act of inhibition. | The observing mind 
holds a habit pattern in check until it is released by just the right and 
appropriate situation. Second, it has the habit of looking into situations 
to see what elements they contain. This habit has been called analysis. 
Perhaps when he does respond he will respond in a way which he has 
learned. That is, he may give a type of response which is the appropriate 
one, but which he has learned to give to another sort of situation, and which 
he gives now because, holding the original habit in check, he has had 
time to see that the situation before him, once analyzed, contains as its 
significant element something which is for practical purposes similar to 
and may be identified with, another thing. At first he may not have 
noticed at all that the situation contained this other thing, but it is a 
great advantage when one learns to behave toward one thing as if it 
were something else. 


There is, for instance, the often-repeated story of Isaac Newton who, 
it is said, first thought of the law. of gravitation when he saw an apple fall- 


84 


ing. In other words, what Newton’s mind does is something like this: 
He says the apple is like the moon, and like the moon in one 
respect, and that is that they are each attracted to the earth 
directly as to their mass and inversely as to the square of the distance 
between them and the earth. This is an amazing likeness and one which 
would never occur to a person who had formed the habit of thinking of 
apples in only one way. Newton thinks of the apple in a new way. It is 
like the moon. Yet the apple is like the moon in many respects, all others 
of which are insignificant for this purpose. Both are round; both have 
a part in the literature of love-stories; both may be overhead. And there 
is nothing in either the apple or the moon which in itself necessitates 
their being compared in the way that Newton compared them. The ability 
to make such a comparison was possible only because Newton had devel- 
oped the super-habits of withholding action in a situation until he had 
analyzed out the relevant or significant element. Once the significant 
element is seen one may behave toward it in the way that he has learned. 
That is, it is an advantage now to Newton to behave toward the moon 
as if it were an apple. But to see that new and significant likeness ts 
something which the environment itself will not teach men to do. That 
requires sagacity; or as James once said, “gumption.” It is, as I have 
indicated, a super-habit and while, therefore, Watson is probably 
correct in saying that thinking consists in implicit bodily habits, 
or sub-vocal talking, yet we see now that this sub-vocal talking is not 
parrot-like repetition of acquired information. It becomes creative think- 
ing only where the habit of sagacity enables one to recognize a common 
element in things which were apparently dissimiliar, and to enrich one’s 
behavior by behaving toward a new thing as if it were an old one when 
such behavior puts one in new and more effective relations with that 
particular thing. So much then for habits. We are not merely the 
creatures of them. We are in part creators of them, and with them may 
become sometimes creators of new truths and new facts of human progress. 


Memory, or the Retention of Habits. 


So far we have talked about acquiring habits. I wish to say just a 
word about the retention of habits. Watson very ingeniously points out 
that the retention of bodily habits is memory. Memory, therefore, is not 
some mysterious faculty of the soul. It is, as he says, simply the fact 
that after a period of no practice in certain habits, the function is not 
lost but is retained as part of the individual’s organization. Other behavior- 
ists have defined memory as “ delayed responses to stimulus.” Much data 
has been gathered by experimental psychologists as to the number and 
kind of things that can be memorized. We do not need to go into this 
mass of data for it is not relevant to our present study. The treatment 
of memory as retention of habits is a valuable point of view and does 
much to get our psychology away from needless mysticism. Perhaps too, 
it throws light upon the problems which so many people raise of improving 
one’s memory. The way to improve our memory would seem to be 
simply to learn our habits well—including the sub-vocal language habits. 

James regards memory very largely as a bodily habit, though he 
does not use the word habit in this connection. He treats memory first as 
primary memory, and second as secondary memory or memory proper. 


85 


What he says about primary memory would fit in with what behaviorists 
say about memory. He regards it as basically the property of living 
matter depending, like habit, upon the plasticity of living tissue. He says 
that all nerve currents must leave their traces and these, of course, once 
revived, constitute memory. Also, that because of its plasticity the 
nervous system does not change as rapidly as do the changes in stimuli 
in the environment. For instance, there are after-images which Professor 
Seashore has studied at some length. Then there is a curious haunting 
of our organisms by impressions after they have ceased to play upon 
us, as, for instance, the feeling one has after having been on a boat, or 
after a string has been tied round a finger and then has been removed. 
From these simple facts James moves on toward the more complicated 
ones, showing that so far as retentiveness is concerned it consists in this 
purely physiological fact. This he calls primary memory and this, so far 
as I can see, is as much as a behaviorist can say on the subject. 


But James says that memory is more than this. It is not a mere 
calling up or living through again a certain incident. If we did that 
completely and simply, we should not even know that we are not living 
through the event for the first time. Remembering a thing means first 
that it is associated with my past, and second, that it is given a certain 
locus in that past; that is, the object of memory is imagined in the past 
and with the act of imagination there must go an emotion of belief that 
this particular incident really belongs in the associated past. Of course, 
the whole past is not recalled. It is reconstructed, and is associated very 
largely from the standpoint of the present so that the past has essentially 
a symbolic significance for us. The important thing in remembering, 
says James, is this matter of association, and also, this habit of associating 
things is an aid to the memory. Given two persons with the same primary 
retentiveness, he will remember best who thinks over his experience most, 
who, therefore, has the largest number of particular facts associated with 
any particular one. 


This is about what I mean: to improve one’s memory one simply 
must learn his habits well. So-called courses which are advertised to 
improve memory make it appear as if memory were a mysterious faculty 
to be exercised or a sort of spiritual baby to be wheeled out in the park 
so that it may keep well and grow stronger. All such ways of looking on 
memory are pure nonsense and are based upon wrong psychology. Mem- 
ory does not improve with exercise, for there is nothing to be exercised. 
Remembering is simply acquiring habits and acquiring them in such a way 
that they become a fixed part of our organization. ‘Thus, neither in 
learning habits or in retaining them are we the passive creatures of the 
past. Through all our habit formation and retention we are not perfecting 
and securing our hold upon any ideas which are stored up somewhere, 
but are organizing patterns of action in which there are retained significant 
elements all of which become instruments for living. 





LECTURE Vil 
Human Nature and the Problems of Instinct. 


FN its Gh v3 
fh ERR a SORT ay ate 





Pay vn 4 id : 
Meets MAA in gh rae oa AS a Saae mn e 


HUMAN NATURE AND INSTINCT. 


HE problem of instinct, like that of consciousness, is a conttoversial 
one for modern psychologists. This was not the case with the older 
philosophers. Instinct was conceived of as something quite the opposite 
of reason. Both instinct and reason were divine gifts, endowments which 
a benevolent Creator had showered upon mortal beings for the purpose 
of guiding them through life. Man, the highest work of His hand, He 
had equipped with reason in order that man might know Him, and that 
a few, at least, ultimately might share eternal glory with Him. Reason, 
however, was fallible and prone to error, and in the end faith was a better 
guide. 

Instinct He had given to animals. It was a marvellous and mysteri- 
ous thing, a proof of divine providence and of “design” in the world. 
Men wondered at the behavior of bees; at the accuracy with which they 
constructed honey-comb. They saw in the nest-making activity of birds 
and in their migratory instincts evidences of a cosmic plan and of a 
divine hand leading all living things in the way that they should go. How 
intricate and accurate many of the things that animals did appeared and 
yet how little knowledge or calculation these creatures seemed to show. 
Surely a kind-hearted Deity in His plan of creation had taken the wel- 
fare of all these forms of life into account. The existence of instinct was 
utilized by older theologians, therefore, as a “ teleological” argument. 
To their minds it seemed to prove that in all things in nature there were 
evidences that the created world was the work of an over-ruling and 
all-comprehending intelligence, 


The Effect of Evolutionism Upon Theories of Instinct. 


The evolutionism of the 19th century has completely changed this 
view. Teleology, or purpose, is no longer regarded as something universal 
and imposed upon nature from without; no longer a proof that there is 
somewhere a deus ex machina. In its place we have organic activity, 
response to stimulus, adaptation of concrete organisms to their environ- 
ment, struggle for existence, and that interesting fact discovered by 
Darwin of the interdependence of species. Instinct, like all other 
phenomena of life, has been brought within the scope of organic evolution 
and is regarded merely as a form of animal behavior, a product of natural 
selection. Life is essentially active. Activity is as elemental as structure. 
In a sense we may say that structure is the effect of certain of life’s activi- 
ties. The structure of an organism at any time is but a cross-section of 
its process of growth, and just as organisms, according to Darwin, vary 
accidentally in respect to the inherited forms of their structure, by the 
same law of variation they differ congenitally and accidentally in their 
tendencies to behave. Just as those accidental advantages of structure 
give certain creatures a better opportunity to survive in the struggle for 
existence and just as in the same struggle those organisms whose varia- 
tions throw them out of harmony with the environment are killed off 
before maturity, so with the variations in native behavior trends or instincts. 

Instinct is not an endowment; it is not the result of inherited habit. 
An instinct is like a bodily organ, an accidental variation in the life process 


[89] 


A 


which has been preserved by the impersonal operation of natural selection. 
And because instinctive factors, like structural elements, are original 
accidents of birth or “ congenital variations,’ they may be inherited, and 
the accumulation of such inheritance finally constitutes the instinctive 
behavior of a living species, animal or human. 


Moreover, careful study discloses the fact that animals are not 
entirely the creatures of instinct. They, like ourselves, can learn. They 
develop habits and would seem to show in much of their activity evidences 
of a certain crude reasoning. A young bird, for instance, even though 
it has inherited the instinct to fly, must yet learn to fly through a process 
which is as difficult for it as learning to talk and to walk are difficult for a 
human infant. You have doubtless many times been a witness of that 
educational process in the bird species, when the young fledgeling first 
leaves the nest and the parents with a great clatter and much excitement 
are teaching it to fly. This learning process, according to many animal 
psychologists, is a necessary part of the education of a vast number of 
insects and of the lower, as well as higher animals. 


It has also been discovered that man, instead of being the rational 
creature that earlier philosophers thought he was, is not at all governed 
by reason in the way that they imagined. One of the important discoveries 
of modern psychology is that man is not a very reasonable being. Man 
was found to have an enormous number of instincts. James says that 
the human being has more instincts than a monkey. It is said that while 
man has more instinctive trends than the lower animals, these instincts 
are by no means so perfectly organized in man, and therefore, while man 
does more things instinctively, he does none of them so well or correctly. 
Man’s instinctive patterns are all over-laid and modified—* conditioned,” 
as we saw in an earlier lecture, by habit, and by some degree of intelligent 
consideration. When James wrote his chapter on In&Stinct he really did 
a revolutionary service for psychology. In showing that man is a less 
rational being than pre-evolutionary philosophers had imagined him to 
be, he was, without realizing it, preparing the way for Freud and other 
psychopathologists who have shown us that human behavior is to an 
enormous extent unconsciously determined. While many Freudians still 
feel that this unconscious determination is rooted in our primal instincts 
such as sex, nutrition, self-preservation, and gregariousness, it is not 
necessary for us to conclude that such is wholly the case. These large 
terms used by Freudians are rather abstract, and it is doubtful if they 
represent anything more than the most incipient and highly modified sur- 
vivals of what may have been originally instinctive trends. In the 
unconscious, instincts are so confused, inhibited and overlaid with 
repressive modifications, that it is, as we shall see, impossible to 
isolate any pure instinctive tendencies. 


The Recent Over Emphasis of Instinct by Social Psychologists. 


However this may be, the emphasis upon instinct since James’s day, 
has been very great, especially among social psychologists. As one author 
said, once it was found that man was not a wholly reasonable being, 
“it has rained instinct.” Scholars have tried to explain everything by 
instinct. They have felt that when they could say that any persistent 
and wide-spread human interest was an inherited disposition to do a 


91 


certain thing, ot in other words, an instinct, they were telling wus 
something very significant and important about it. I think there is some- 
thing tautological about this tendency in social psychology. I am not 
sure that we get very much new insight into parenthood, for instance, 
when one says that it is a manifestation of the “ parental instinct.” The 
same is true of religion, politics, sex, and industry. We need something 
much more specific than the attempt to reduce the main lines of human 
interest and activity to some broad general instinctive disposition. 


Yet, Professor McDougall says, “ We may say, then, that directly or 
indirectly the instincts are the prime movers of all human activity; by 
the conative or impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived 
from an instinct), every train of thought, however cold and passionless 
it may seem, is borne along towards its end, and every bodily activity is 
initiated and sustained. The instinctive impulses determine the ends of 
all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities 
are sustained; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most highly 
developed mind is but a means towards these ends, is but the instrument 
by which these impulses seek their satisfaction, while pleasure and pain 
do but serve to guide them. in their choice of the means.” 

So there has been an attempt to explain almost everything human 
as a manifestation of some specific instinct. Ames and others try to 
explain religion as a combination of the instincts of sex, food, and grega- 
riousness. Trotter has tried to explain almost the whole of civilization 
in terms of the “instinct of the herd.” Others have tried to explain 
war as a simple expression of the “instinct of pugnacity.” Freudians 
have sought to reduce everything to the instinct of sex. And Veblen, 
following McDougall, has tried to give us an account of the development 
of the economic interest in society in terms of the so-called “ instinct 
of workmanship.” As I have indicated, social psychology, with the excep- 
tion of the few writers who seek to approach the subject from the stand- 
point of habits as does Dewey in his book, “ Human Nature and Conduct” 
(or as do Freud and a few others, from the standpoint of psycho- 
pathology), is almost obsessed with the concept of instinct. To my 
mind, at least, this concept has been so over-worked and (in general) so 
confused that it has very little value anymore. I do not see how it 
can serve us greatly either as an adequate account of individual or social 
behavior or as a criterion by which we may distinguish the normal from 
the abnormal. 


Confusion in Regard to the Concept of Instinct. 


Let us now notice some examples of this confusion. First, there seems 
to be little agreement as to just what are the instincts in man; and second, 
there seems to be great difference of opinion as to the definition of 
instinct. James’s list of instincts is rather extensive. It is probably the 
longest list there is. Here are some of the instincts which he finds: 
sneezing, snoring, sobbing, gagging, vomiting, hiccoughing, crying, laugh- 
ing, starting, moving the limbs when tickled, touched or blown upon. These 
he calls the simpler reflex movements. Then there are sucking, biting, 
making grimaces, licking, spitting out, clasping, pointing, making noises, 
carrying things to the mouth, smiling, turning the head, sitting up, stand- 
ing, locomotion, vocalization, imitation, rivalry, pugnacity sympathy. 


92 


hunting, feat, acquisitiveness, play, constructiveness, curiosity, secretive- 
ness, cleanliness, modesty and shame, love, jealousy, parental love. It will 
be seen that in this list there is no clear distinction between instincts and 
emotions. Fear, jealousy, sympathy and many aspects of love, as well 
as shame and modesty, would seem to belong to the realm of feelings 
rather than of actions, and James says that an instinct is an inherited 
tendency to act in a characteristic way while an inherited tendency to feel 
is characterized as emotion. Obviously, too, there must be a great differ- 
ence between an instinct like parental love, which is very complicated and 
may dominate most of the behavior of an individual throughout many 
years of his maturer life, and a simple instinct like sneezing or biting. 
Yet James does not seem to make it clear what this difference is or why 
such different things should be described under the same head. 


Professor McDougall’s list of instincts is somewhat different. Per- 
haps McDougall, more than any other contemporary psychologist, is the 
exponent of the role that instinct plays in human behavior. He has tried 
to classify the instincts, and in so doing he assumes that each instinct is 
somehow necessarily connected with a certain emotion, and that the two 
together constitute a “ disposition.” The emotion he calls the “affect” 
of the instinct by which he means the feeling side of it. There is, first, 
the instinct of flight with the accompanying emotion of fear; second, the 
instinct of repulsion and the emotion of disgust; third, the instinct of 
curiosity and the emotion of wonder; fourth, the instinct of pugnacity 
and the emotion of anger; fifth, the instinct of self-abasement and the 
negative self-feeling (sometimes called the feeling of self-depreciation) ; 
sixth, the instinct of self-assertion and the emotion of positive self-feeling 
(sometimes called egoism or the emotion of self-appreciation) ; eighth, 
the parent instinct and the tender emotion. 


Then there are three instincts, according to McDougall, in which there 
are no definite inherited emotions. They are the instinct of reproduction, 
the gregarious instinct, and the instinct of constructiveness. This list of 
instincts, though very specific and almost uncritically accepted by many 
social psychologists, raises a good many questions. Curiosity, for instance, 
may be regarded as a phase of the intellect rather than as an inherited 
tendency to act. It may be questioned why McDougall leaves out such 
instincts as the hunting instinct and the homing instinct which, according 
to Thorndike, are very important. So also the instinct of migration; and 
the instinct of collecting and hoarding which, according to many psychol- 
ogists, is the basis of the ownership of property among men. 


Again, one is impelled to question whether each of these so-called 
instincts is anything more than a pure abstraction. James says that a 
very common way of talking about these admirably definite tendencies to 
act (instincts) is by naming abstractly the purpose they serve, such as 
self-preservation or defense or the care for eggs and young. Thus, the 
animal has an instinctive fear of death or love of life or an instinct of 
self-preservation or an instinct of maternity, and the like. But this repre- 
sents the animal as obeying abstractions which not once in a million cases 
is it possible it can have framed. The strict psychological way of inter- 
preting the facts leads to far clearer results. The actions we call instinc- 
tive all conform to the general reflex type. ‘They are called forth by 


93 


determinate sensory stimuli in contact with the animal’s body or at a 
distance in his environment. . . . “He acts in each case separately 
and simply because he cannot help it. . . . Is each thing born fitted 
to some particular things and to them exclusively, as locks are fitted to 
their keys? Undoubtedly this must be believed to be so.” Here James 
would seem to be fairly close to the position which we shall shortly see 
as that of Dr. John B. Watson. 


Whether or not Professor McDougall has substituted abstractions for 
these concrete responses in his classification of instincts, he seems at least 
to have done so in coupling with each instinct a certain emotion or “ affect.” 
It is open to question whether naturally our instincts and emotions are 
really coupled in this way. For instance, is the emotion of fear neces- 
sarily associated with the instinct of flight? Undoubtedly it is at times, 
but there seem to be many fears which have nothing to do with flight; 
in fact, the Freudians frequently say that this emotion is the result of 
inhibited sexuality, especially in anxiety dreams. Rivers points to the fact 
that fear is most intense when flight is impossible; and there are many 
cases when successful flight, instead of being associated with fear, carries 
with it a certain feeling of elation. 


The same may be said of McDougall’s coupling pugnacity with anger. 
Nietzche showed that the most intense hatred may exist among the meek 
and apparently loving. He speaks of “impotent revenge” and shows 
how it gives rise to certain ideals which he characterizes as “ weapons” 
of the meek. When we come to consider the parental instinct, is not the 
phrase, the “tender emotions,’ altogether too general? Undoubtedly 
infants do make some such emotional appeal to normal adults, but certainly 
not always, even to their own parents. I should say that with the parental 
instinct, if there is such an instinct, as well as with other instincts, which 
McDougall has listed, there normally goes not one specific affect, but a 
very large number of confused emotional states. 


A third psychologist, Rivers, to whom I referred earlier in the course, 
also gives a list of instincts which we should consider. Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, 
late of Cambridge University, England, was one of the most brilliant of the 
newer school of social psychology in his country. He was an anthropoli- 
gist, a doctor of medicine, and a psycho-analyst. Shortly before his death 
he wrote an extremely interesting book entitled “ Instinct and the Uncon- 
scious.” In this book, as well as in his last book published since his recent 
death, he had something to say about instinct. It would seem that he 
does just what James argued one should not do. He classifies instincts 
under three heads: First, the instinct of self-preservation, under which 
he places nutrition, hunting, curiosity, and the danger group which consists 
of flight, aggression, manipulation, and immobility. Second, there are the 
instincts of the continuance of the race, under which he places the sex 
instinct and the parental instinct. Third, there are the instincts for the 
preservation or cohesion of the group and under this instinct he places 
gregariousness which is composed of suggestion, sympathy, intuition, and 
imitation. We will discuss this last or gregarious instinct later. 


It should be noticed in passing that Rivers classes as instinctive such 
forms of action as curiosity, immobility, suggestion, sympathy, and imita- 


94 


tion. It is clear that there is a difference between these forms of action 
and behavior trends such as hunting and sex. Rivers’ classification is highly 
arbitrary. Are there not suggestion and sympathy in sex as truly as in 
“ gregariousness”” ? And can the parental instinct with the outgrowth of 
family into the tribe be wholly separated from the group instinct? Does 
curiosity belong to self-preservation any more than to our re-action to sex- 
ual objects and to society? And is not self-preservation so highly general 
and abstract that it means almost everything and, therefore, practically 
nothing? 


It will be seen that among the writers quoted not only is the classifi- 
cation of instincts confused and open to question, but there is no clear 
definition as to what instinct really is. James seems to hold that in- 
stinctive acts are of the nature of specific responses, by which organisms 
are fitted to the facts of their environment, like keys to locks; that these 
responses are multitudinous, and that about the only generalization we 
can make is that “ every creature naturally loves its own ways.’ McDou- 
gall classifies instincts according to the general lines of activity and 
feeling of which an organism is capable. And Rivers classifies instincts 
teleologically, that is, according to the ends that such activity serves, “ self- 
preservation,” “ reproduction” and “ cohesion of the group.” 


Professor Hocking has recently called attention to the confusion of 
definition. He says, “ The common use of the term instinct is not embar- 
rassed by the fact that its meaning is hybrid. It means a mode of 
behavior and it means a mode of interest, and for ordinary purposes the 
mixture of physical ingredients and mental ingredients makes no trouble 
and requires no explanation. But when a technical definition is sought 
such mixtures are no longer satisfactory; a concept must have a fixable 
character, not a dual personality. Yet the effort to reach a clear and 
distinct idea of instinct, commonly results in a dilemma. When the defini- 
tion does justice to all that instinct means in physical terms, it fails to 
fit what instinct means in mental terms, and vice-versa. When either 
pln is securely nailed down, the other warps up and refuses to fall into 
place.” 


This will be easily seen if we note the different definitions of instinct 
which are current among psychologists. James says, “ Instinct is usually 
defined as a faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends 
without foresight of the ends and without previous education in the 
performance.” Notice that in this definition knowledge or learning plays 
no part. Bergson, however, says, “If instinct is above all the faculty 
of using an organized natural instrument, it must involve innaie knowl- 
edge (potential or unconscious, it is true) both of this instrument and 
of the object to which it is brought; instinct is, therefore, innate knowledge 
of athing. . . . Instinct is sympathy.” It will be seen at once that 
this is a highly mystical concept of instinct. 


McDougall’s definition would seem to contain something of both of 
these points of view. He says, “ We may define an instinct as an inherited 
or innate psycho-physical disposition which determines its possessor to 
perceive and to pay attention to objects of a certain class and to experience 
an emotional excitement of a particular quality upon perceiving such an 


oS 


object and to act in regard to it in a particular manner, or at least to 
experience an impulse to such action.” It will be seen that far from 
separating instinct either from intelligence, or from emotion and habit, 
McDougall’s definition involves the necessity of assuming as part of in- 
stinct, perception, emotion, and will. Perhaps Dr. Watson has provided 
a way of escape from this confusion. Watson defines instinct as “an 
inherited re-action pattern, the separate elements of which are organized 


in unstriped muscle tissue.” 


Dr. John B. Watson's Study of Instinct. 


From this “ behaviorist point of view” the problem of instinct is 
not only one of instinct versus intelligence, but of instinct versus habit. This 
statement of the case would seem to give us justification for inquiring into 
the problem of how instinct differs from habit. What is the problem of 
instinct if it is not that of learning what are the native and inherited traits 
of man and what are the acquired traits? Acquired traits are not inherit- 
able; they are modifiable by experience and training. As social customs 
they constitute those habits which make up the bulk of our civilization and 
social order, our ethics and religion. In so far as these things are based 
upon acquired traits or habits they are modifiable, at least to some extent. 

The question of instinct, therefore, has very practical significance 
for us because it involves the question, how much in our social as well 
as personal behavior is improvable? Of course, those forms of response 
which are inherited belong to the species precisely in the same way that 
its inherited bodily structure belongs to it. Therefore, these inherited 
modes of response or instincts, being part of the inheritance of the human 
species, will appear in all its normal members generation after generation, 
regardless of the amount of training the individuals in their life time may 
receive. They may be modified and repressed by social convention but 
they cannot be trained out of the race. They are what men talk about 
when they speak of “human nature,’ and undoubtedly their existence 
must defeat the attempt at any forms of social advance which are in 
too great a conflict with them. How, then, are we to know what human 
nature is? Dr. Watson sought the answer to this problem in the careful 
observation of those modes of response which a baby brings with it when 
it comes into the world. All other modes of response must either be in 
themselves habits or must be habitual modifications of instincts. 

Perhaps no one has so carefully observed the behavior of small chil- 
dren as did Watson in the laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Almost every 
movement that hundreds of children made day after day throughout their 
first year was noted and recorded. At first most of the infant’s movements 
were just random movements which early in the life of the child come to 
be organized into more specific and useful ways of behavior. These co- 
ordinations are the early acquired modes of response. There are, however, 
certain reflexes which have an instinctive basis, such as turning the head, 
sucking, sneezing, crying, blinking, grasping, etc. This grasping reflex 
is interesting because itis later lost. A small child only an hour old will 
support its weight for several minutes hanging by one hand. After a 
few days the child no longer has the ability to do this. And after the 
first few months, our author tells us, the instincts of a child are so 
modified by what it has learned that the original patterns are no longer 


96 


discernable. Watson says that most of the lists of instincts that appear 
in the writings of psychologists are really consolidations of instinct and 
habit. 


The approach to this subject made by Watson has one singular 
advantage and that is the suggestion that when discussing the existence 
of any particular instinct in man we should look for the inherited re-action 
pattern. Of course, there are instincts which appear so late in the life 
of the individual that it is impossible to say just what re-action patterns 
are inherited, as would be the case when we study small children. It is 
more than likely that when these inherited patterns do make their appear- 
ance late in life, as for instance the instinct of sex in adolescence or the 
so-called parental instinct, the individual has already acquired before the 
appearance of the instinct, certain very definite habits regarding it. 


Important as the subject of instinct is, one should learn from Dr. 
Watson to avoid the danger of assuming that there is a specific instinct 
for every persistent and general human interest or behavior trend. As 
C. E. Ayres says, “ Instinct in man has been defined in terms as remote 
as possible from those that delineate the stereotyped re-action patterns 
of animals. ‘Instinctive impulses’ determine not the character of the be- 
havior, but “the ends’ of all activities and supply the driving power 
by which all mental activities are sustained. This emphasis upon the 
‘end’ of the activity rather than upon the form of the act suggests as 
its accompaniment the definition of instinct as ‘a disposition’ which 
determines its possessor to perceive and to attend to an object of a certain 
class. . . . In-short, instinct in man is his disposition to behave in 
whatever way he may behave. . . . If you conceive the end of urban 
life to be sociability then you can classify it as ‘ gregarious’; if you con- 
ceive it to be economic, then it is ‘acquisitive,’ or “proprietory’ (or 
due to an instinct for unearned increment). In this sense the most solidly 
based of the human instincts is Mr. Kantor’s ‘Instinct to die,’ for, as 
he points out, death is the ‘ end’ of all activity.” 


While this criticism is perhaps a little facetious, there is a point 
in it. If you take any other than a behaviorist view of instinct and think 
of instincts as ends rather than as patterns, then why not an instinct for 
mathematics, an instinct to go to the 10c store, to look in a mirror, to talk 
about people behind their backs; an instinct to destroy, to loaf, to make 
noises on New Year’s eve, and an instinct to violate the Volstead Act? 


Let us consider some three or four of the so-called “ instincts ” which 
psychologists, viewing the matter in this way, believe throw some light 
upon human behavior. There is, for instance, the so-called instinct of 
“ acquisition,” or the instinct to acquire and hold property. Surely this 
is a very general human interest. But has man any such instinct as a 
pure and specific inherited element in his psychic life? Dr. W. H. R. 
Rivers believed that he had, though he thought that the instinct of acquisi- 
tion could be modified to some extent. Perhaps the facts of cleptomania 
and of miserliness would indicate some sort of inherited pattern since 
there is something rather stereotyped and uniform in the behavior of 
most cleptomaniacs and of most misers. But cleptomania and miserliness 
are really psychopathic forms of behavior and need further analysis. 


97 


When we consider the patterns which men reveal in the normal acquisition 
of property and the many ways by which they hoard and save, we must 
see that patterns here are very diverse and since they include almost the 
whole of our financial and industrial behavior, they are acquired rather 
than inherited forms of response. If man, as seems to be the case, came 
out of the pre-human state with his basic instinctive patterns already 
formed by evolution, it is doubtful if there could be any such instinct 
as that of acquisition, since property is a social institution and came into 
the world many thousands of years after man’s instinctive behavior patterns 
had been evolved. Personally I can find very little that is helpful to the 
understanding of man’s attitude toward property when I read the words 
of those who would explain this human interest as merely a manifestation 
of the instinct of acquisition. 


Again, there is the so-called “ gregarious instinct,” which most English 
and American social psychologists practically worship. Perhaps this in- 
stinct may exist in man to some small degree. We are companionable 
animals. But if we look for the behavior patterns of gregariousness, 
I think, we shall be lead to the conclusion that it is impossible to draw 
the enormous inferences from this instinct which some social psychologists 
seem to draw. If we compare man to gregarious animals we find that 
there are practically three behavior patterns which characterize the herd 
instinct of the latter. ‘There is first the pattern of huddling together; 
second, the tendency to run in the same direction; and third, the ten- 
dency to remain within sight of the other members of the group. All 
these patterns may exist in the social behavior of man. But surely they 
would not in themselves give rise to the many conventions and restraints 
of civilization. They do not build institutions, nor do they give rise to 
public opinion; in fact, very few of the things which Trotter or McCurdy 
or Rivers would explain by this instinct have anything to do with it. 


Rivers believed, as we saw above, that the herd instinct consists of 
suggestion, sympathy, and imitation. Suggestion can hardly be regarded 
as an instinctive thing. In fact, “suggestion” has frequently been used 
by psychopathologists in a very mystical sense. About all we can say 
about it is that it is the abstraction of attention in such a manner that all 
ideas or impulses which are contrary to a certain definite one held in mind 
are inhibited. We have no right to say that animals manifest suggestion. 
Sympathy again is an emotion and “imitation” probably does not exist 
at all. When animals behave similarly it is probably because they are 
very much alike and happen to be in an environment which stimulates 
them in much the same way. 


The normal forms of social behavior are not original instinctive 
endowments. They consist, as Dewey said, of habits of mutual adjustment. 
We have to be social because there are so many of us and we are per- 
manently in one another’s environments—in one another’s way. And 
it is necessary, if we are to adapt ourselves to an environment made up 
of other people, that we bring some degree of stability and predictability 
in to our common behavior. So much for the over-worked instinct of 
gregariousness. 


Another exaggeration of instinct is to be found in the discussion 
of the so-called ‘instinct of workmanship,” such as that of Professor 


98 


Veblen’s book which has this phrase as its title. If we keep in mind the 
fact that an instinct is an inherited mode of response of the pattern 
re-action type, then we must see that man inherits no labor patterns. 
A trade must be learned. It is a matter of habit-formation and it is 
even doubtful if men have an inherited inclination to work. Personally 
I do not think we do. My own observation would rather confirm the 
notion that everybody has a natural interest to get out of work if he 
can. Not everyone who loves “Labor” loves work. It is significant 
that none of the gods which humanity has created for itself have been 
imagined as working. Of course, it is said that Jehova during the six 
days “ worked ’”’—but he merely spoke or thought things into existence. 
Vulcan, the working god of the Greeks, was always regarded as ridiculous. 
Holy days like the Sabbath are days on which men are forbidden to work. 
The myths and legends of antiquity, as Patrick says, never picture folk- 
heroes as workers; they always picture them as adventurers, fighters, 
lovers, and loafers. 


Finally, there is the so-called “ parental instinct.” It is obvious that 
whatever may be the inherited element in this instinct, there are so many 
patterns necessary to its operation, and by the time the adult individual 
reaches parenthood, his whole life is so much a matter of habit, that it 1s 
impossible to say how much of his behavior is inherited and how much 
is acquired. All the manifold acts of courtship, of mating; all the ego 
interests that accompany the wish to be admired, and all the forms of 
protection and labor by which, during the period of infancy, the new 
generation is safe-guarded and supported; all the activities of habituation 
and home-making, and all the adjustments which are necessary throughout 
the life of a married couple, would pertain to this so-called instinct. 
Clearly the psychological fallacy of lumping all these manifold activities 
together under the common term “ instinct of parenthood ” tells us precisely 
nothing. 


So the attempt to discuss the subject of instinct in terms of the ends 
rather than of the patterns of behavior tells us very little about human 
nature. In fact, it assumes the very thing that is sets out to explain. If, 
however, we regard an instinct as an inherited pattern, we may be able, 
to some degree, to determine which are the basic facts of human nature 
and which forms of activity are environmental, acquired, and modifiable. 
Moreover, once we are able to isolate the true patterns of an instinct we 
may be able to discover which habit-modifications of that pattern are normal 
and wholesome adjustments to the environment and which are psychopathic. 


The Control and Inhibition of Instincts. 


This leads us to the consideration of the control and inhibition of 
instincts. Obviously, if what we have said above is correct, instincts in 
man cannot operate in the automatic and inevitable fashion that they 
do in animals. We live in a very complicated environment and among 
ever-changing situations. The unmodified appearance of any instinct in 
the presence of its appropriate stimulus would result in disaster for us, 
for such action would be like the performance of a habit in situations 
where, taken as a whole, such performance would be irrelevant. Rivers 
showed that the suppression of instinct is a basic fact in human and animal 


tee) 


life. The famous Rivers-Head experiment, which I described in the 
second lecture, throws some light on this matter. You will remember, 
the nerves of Dr. Head’s arms were cut in such a way that they were 
many months in healing and and restoring their function. As the nerves 
began to heal a stage was reached when a stimulus to Dr. Head’s hand 
was felt over a much wider area of the surface of the skin than is normally 
the case. And there was not only a greater diffusion but there were also 
other factors which had not appeared in normal sensation. It seemed 
to Rivers and Head, therefore, that when the function of the nerves was 
restored to normal something primal and original was lost or repressed. 
This primal general feeling tone they called protopathic, and the repression 
of it which came with complete healing they called epicritic sensation be- 
cause this latter brought with it specific awareness and greater definitness 
of feeling and of response. 


What Rivers and Head found in sensations they also discovered in 
bodily movements. Protopathic movements or response are random move- 
ments like those that characterize emotional excitement. They were not 
adaptive. And they tend, if excited at all, to greater activity than the 
situation or stimulus normally requires. This latter type of behavior psy- 
chologists call the all-or-none principle. Finally, protopathic response is 
like protopathic sensation—spread over a very wide bodily area, resulting 
in the movement not of a definite organ, but of the body as a whole. This 
they called mass re-action. Rivers says that protopathic behavior is the 
original form of response to stimulus and constitutes the basic element in 
instinct. 


There are no patterns in the protopathic elements of instinct. Neither 
is the protopathic directed toward any ends. It is simply a universal urge 
or drive, and when it is dissociated from one pattern it will assume others. 
Here probably we have a psycho-physical basis of what Freudians call 
the “ unconscious ”—also perhaps the original element in what Woodworth 
calls the “ drive.”’ As living forms evolved, the epicritic more and moré 
suppressed the original protopathic quality of behavior. Otherwise there 
never could have been any sort of specific response or pattern re-action. 
The pattern re-actions, therefore, belong to the epicritic and creatures 
even far down in the scale of animal life, as well as man, are organized 
by nature in such a way that the protopathic urge or drive is, in many 
ways, repressed and utilized and remains merely as the motivating force 
back of the behavior patterns. ‘ 


With man many additional behavior patterns must be acquired. Each 
acquired pattern is a new habit learned and each is a form of repression 
or inhibition of instinct. When, therefore, men argue for freedom from 
the inhibition of instincts they are often arguing for that which is psycho- 
logically impossible. As psychologists we are concerned, however, with 
the disguises which the protopathic urge or unconscious assumes when it 
is repressed by a very heavy crust of habit formation. 


Perhaps if we consider the protopathic itself it is the same in all 
instincts, whether ego or sex or food or gregariousness, and that from 
the standpoint of the protopathic there is only one instinctive urge. From 
the standpoint of the epicritic, the number of instincts 1s indefinite and 
incapable of classification. Moreover, as Kantor suggests, from this stand- 


100 


point there would seem to be little difference, except in the amount of 
inhibition, between an epicritic repression which is inherited, and one 
which is acquired by habit. Successful repression is the true psychological 
aim and the criterion of behavior must be found here. Where repression 
is unsuccessful, the protopathic trends escape in new mechanisms of 
disguise, in the manner that the Freudians have showed us, and it is here 
more than anywhere else that we need both socially and individually to 
understand ourselves. 


In conclusion, we have seen that psychologists seem to be confused 
in regard to instincts. They would appear to be correct in holding that 
intelligence plays a smaller role in human behavior than was formerly 
believed to be the case. They are correct in taking an evolutionist view 
of human nature and in seeking to distinguish between those behavior 
trends which are native and those which are acquired. They would seem 
to be in error whenever they strive to specify certain definite instincts in 
terms of the ends which those instincts serve. The ends then become mere 
arbitrary abstractions. Again if we look upon instincts, as Watson does, 
in terms of the re-action patterns which they show, we see that it is 
extremely difficult and perhaps in many cases unnecessary to try to differ- 
entiate instinct from habit. But the truth persists, as James says, that 
human beings, like other living things, like their own ways and will strive 
to persist in them, 


LECTURE VIli 
Man and his Emotions. 





MAN AND HIS EMOTIONS 


ISCUSSIONS of emotion are often prejudiced by what one thinks of 
human nature in general. Plato, in the dialogue, “ The Republic,” 
assigns to emotion a very secondary place in human nature and 1s con- 
cerned chiefly with the ways in which emotion should be controlled. He 
says, in substance, that the soul has three faculties: the reason, the emo- 
tions, and the desires of the body. These three faculties are, to Plato, 
similar to the three classes in his ideal social system or state. The highest 
class, the ruling class, consists of the noble philosophers, the knowing ones, 
who because they have knowledge are the true rulers of the State. The 
second class, which consists of spirited men, fighters, administrators, 
and the like, is of a less intelligent type and should be controlled 
by its superiors for it is necessary for the preservation of the community. 
Beneath this class is the plebeian class, the business men and the workers. 
Plato’s idea of justice is very different from ours. To him justice is har- 
mony within the State or, in other words, the successful working out of the 
stratified order of society which I have just sketched. 


So in the soul harmony should prevail and such harmony means that 
there should be recognized a class distinction between the faculties of the 
soul. Reason comes first and is to rule. Emotions are second and they 
must be controlled by reason. This emphasis upon the control of emotion 
by reason is very common in philosophy. A thinker as far removed from 
Plato as was David Hume in the 18th century shared this view. He speaks 
of emotions as the “ passions,” and he was opposed to many of the popular 
movements of his time because he felt that the crowd was too emotional. 
As he put it, the behavior of the crowd is characterized by “‘ enthusiasm ” 
rather than by reason. Similarly, many conservative thinkers have looked 
upon the masses as mere creatures of emotion. 


Contrasted with this view is that of Romanticism. Romanticism was 
primarily a cultural or artistic movement during the latter part of the 
18th and early part of the 19th centuries. But Romanticism had a cer- 
tain psychological outlook. The Romanticists were very much concerned 
about the emotional life. To them emotion was of primary importance. 
They conceived of freedom as the expression of emotion. The life of 
reason was a mere dead formality. The value of life consisted in its 
emotional possibilities. Thus the Romanticist reversed the view of emo- 
tion and reason which Plato and the older philosophers held. I think the 
chief factor which motivated these different views of emotion was the 
different attitudes toward human nature. The Platonists, like the theolo- 
gians, sought to subordinate human nature to eternal principles. They 
were in a way constantly on their guard against the humanity in them- 
selves. The Romanticist was a humanitarian, if not a humanist. To his 
mind human nature was essentially good, and, therefore, he demanded 
freer expression of it through various emotional outlets. 


Needless to say, each of these views is unpsychological. We cannot 
approach a problem like this from the standpoint of a made-in-advance 


[103] 


104 


theory. As students of psychology we are not concerned here with the 
“goodness” or “badness” of the emotional life in general. We know 
nothing of the “soul and its faculties,’ nor of “pure” reason. Neither 
is it possible for us to isolate emotion and talk in the manner of the 
Romanticist about emotional satisfaction, as if emotions could be indulged 
without regard to consequences, or with indifference to the situations in 
which we find ourselves. Our criterion must not be merely subjective feel- 
ing about human nature, but adequacy of adjustment. Our method must 
be descriptive. We should regard emotion as a form of reflex action. 


James says, “Instinctive reactions and emotional expressions thus 
shade imperceptibly into each other. Every object that excites an instinct 
excites an emotion as well. Emotions, however, fall short of instincts, in 
that emotional reaction usually terminates in the subject's own body, whilst 
the instinctive reaction is apt to go farther and enter into practical relations 
with the exciting object.” 


To McDougall and many others emotions are essentially instinctive. 
They are, for the most part, regarded as affects of certain instinctive 
trends. According to this view, as we saw in the lecture on instinct, each 
instinctive reaction is coupled with a certain feeling tone or affect: as for 
instance, the instinct of flight and the emotion of fear, the instinct of 
pugnacity and the emotion of anger. What we said in criticism of this 
view in the previous lecture applies here. The list of emotions, like that 
of instincts, is arbitrary. And I suspect that when we talk about “ fear” 
or “anger” or any other feeling in this way, we are really substituting 
abstract ideas for the facts of experience. James says, “ The trouble with 
emotions in psychology is that they are regarded too much as absolutely 
individual things. So long as they are set down as so many eternal and 
sacred psychic entities, like the old immutable species in natural history, 
so long all that can be done with them is reverently to catalogue their 
separate points and affects.” He adds, “As far as ‘ scientific psychology ’ 
of the emotions goes, I may have been surfeited by too much reading of 
classic works on the subject. But I should as lief read verbal descriptions 
of the rocks on a New Hampshire farm as toil through them again.” 


Since James’s time, a physiological approach to the subject has given 
us an entirely different point of view regarding the emotions, one which 
makes the subject vastly more interesting and important. And James him- 
self did much to contribute to this new view. He divided emotions into 
what he called the “ coarser ” emotions, such as we have in our more vio- 
lent feelings, and the more “ subtle’ emotions, such as religious reverence 
and appreciation of beauty. In substance, James maintained that both 
types of emotion are pure bodily feelings. Not psychic entities, therefore, 
but sensations stimulated by purely physical changes set going in the va- 
tious organs of our body, constitute emotions, even the loftiest of them. 
There is no “ spiritual faculty’ of emotion. There is no organ or seat of 
emotion in the brain. People who talk about “training the emotions” as 
if emotions were something which could be developed by exercise, are 
simply talking nonsense. Training emotions consists in the formation of 
habits, not so much habits of feeling as habits of thinking through which 
our emotional reactions are adequately released. 


105 


The James-Lange Theory of Emotion. 


Let us see what James contributed to the psychology of emotion. He 
says, “ Bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting ob- 
ject. . . Our feeling of the same changes as they occur, ts the 
emotion.” In other words, when, for instance, we see a terrifying object, 
we do not perceive the object, then have an emotion known as fear, and 
then, because we are afraid, have certain bodily feelings. There is no 
reason for the intervention of this middle psychological entity at all. We 
are so organized by nature that, just as when a hungry animal sees food the 
immediate reflex response to such a stimulus is the secretion of saliva, so 
when we see the terrifying object there are physiological changes which 
wmmediately follow—the trembling of the arms and legs, the parched sensa- 
tion in the mouth and throat, due to the checking of the function of the 
saliva glands, a creeping sensation of the skin, rapid pulse, the catching 
of the breath, etc., etc. 


All these bodily changes follow immediately on the stimulus and are as 
purely reflex in their nature as is the ringing of an electric bell when a 
button is pushed which closes the circuit. These bodily changes are not 
the result or the effect of emotion; they are the emotion. As James says, 
we do not run away because we are afraid; we are afraid because we run; 
or better, because of the impulse to run together with the physiological 
changes which are in preparation for strenuous bodily activity. He says 
that objects excite bodily changes by a pre-organized mechanism and that 
the changes are so idefinitely numerous and subtle that the entire or- 
ganism may be called a “sounding board.’ These changes are felt di- 
rectly or obscurely the moment they occur. They are going on in us all 
the time as the body is stimulated by this or that object and they constitute 
the feeling-reactions which go on during every moment of our experience. 


James says that if we fancy some emotion and then try to abstract 
from our consciousness of it the feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find 
we have nothing left. For instance, should you stand in the presence of 
a terrifying object and find that you had no trembling of the muscles, no 
catching of the breath, no creeping sensation of the skin or “ goose flesh,” 
no change in breathing or in the pulse rate, you would say correctly “I 
am not afraid of this thing.’ The same is true of grief or of love or of 
joy or of humor. Think of any one of these emotions; then think away 
all the bodily sensations and you will find yourself merely holding in con- 
sciousness an abstract idea and not an emotion at all. 


The theory of emotion which I have just tried to state is known as 
the “ James-Lange”’ theory. There has been some criticism of it of late, 
but I do not think that it has been successfully challenged. Certainly 
much that is being said about the subject now would seem to confirm it. 
Of course, as James said, the theory cannot be absolutely proved until we 
find a number of cases of individuals who are perfectly conscious yet are 
in such an anaesthetic stage that they have no sensations of the changes 
going on in their bodies. One or two such cases have been reported and 
they would seem to confirm the theory. But they still may be questioned 
on the ground that such an anaesthetic state is very difficult to determine. 
Cannon reports that physiologists have made experiments on dogs and 
cats but without very positive results. However, on the whole, I think, the 
weight of the evidence would be on James’s side. 


106 


Another class of evidence which James points out is that of certain 
psychopathic cases. There are certain abnormal individuals who ex- 
perience the most violent emotional excitement when there is no outside 
stimulus present. A person suffering with melancholia may experience 
great depression; others will experience fear or anxiety, for all of which 
there is no apparent cause other than the processes which are going on in 
the patient’s own bodily organs. One of James’s conclusions from his 
theory is, I think, open to some criticism, though he himself qualified it. 
He says that if one wishes to control his emotions he should put himself 
in the requisite bodily situations as nearly as possible and “ cold-bloodedly ” 
and deliberately imitate the bodily states of the desired emotion. It is very 
doubtful if this can be done successfully. Some actors tell us that they 
actually do experience the emotion which they simulate. But in all prob- 
ability the emotions are such “ pattern reflex’ responses that nothing like 
a complete bodily emotional state can be deliberately assumed. Some of 
the factors will be left out; the feeling will not be genuine. 


Emotion and Evolution. 


So far our discussion has dealt with what James calls our’ “ coarser ” 
emotions. If the theory is true regarding these, it must also be true in re- 
gard to the finer and more subtle, “spiritual” feelings associated with 
religion, duty, and art. These emotions, also, in so far as they are emo- 
tions, and not mere ideas about emotions, even though the feelings them- 
selves are very subtle, are as truly physical as the others. 


Emotion then, like instinct, comes within the process of evolution. Just 
as natural selection has brought it about that each species has a certain 
vodily structure, so also has the same process resulted in equipping each 
species by inheritance with certain instinctive and emotional responses 
which are characteristic of that species. A problem arises as to what 
“ survival value”? our emotions have. Many of them, like love of music, 
do not seem to be of any advantage to an organism in the struggle for 
existence. Oftentimes our emotions are a disadvantage because they upset 
us so much that we are not as effective in some situations when we are 
emotionally excited as we are when cool-headed. The advantage in a 
critical situation is most often on the side of the person who does not 
become too quickly excited. Yet, without our emotional interests, it is 
doubtful if we could ever have achieved very much, or made any very 
persistent efforts, since most of the “goods” of life are associated with 
our emotions. 


James, following Darwin, however, suggests that many emotional re- 
sponses which are of no practical use to the organism at the present time 
may once have had such use. He quotes Spencer to the effect that some 
movements of expression, particularly those of the muscles of the face, 
which occur in various of our emotions, are “ weakened repetitions ” of 
movements which formerly, “ when they were stronger,” were of utility to 
the subject. Thus, distension of.the nostrils in anger is interpreted as 
survival of the way in which our ancestors had to breathe when the mouth 
was filled by a part of an antagonist’s body that had been seized. We shall 
see later when we discuss Dr. Cannon’s work on emotion, that the bodily 
changes which occur serve the organism in ways which could not have 
been known in James’s day. 


107 


Dr. Watson's Studies of Emotion, 


James’s contention that emotions are essentially bodily changes is 
carried much farther by Dr. John B. Watson. Watson as a behaviorist, 
of course, eliminates from his discussion of emotion the whole subjective 
side. He is not concerned with feelings. He cautions the student that in 
giving an account of emotion he do so strictly in terms of “ stimulus and 
response.” The physcial responses are all that Watson takes note of. He 
says, “An emotion is an hereditary pattern reaction involving profound 
changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but particularly of the vis- 
ceral and glandular systems.” Emotion differs from instinct largely in 
that the response is confined to the subject’s body. If one should insult 
you and you should impulsively strike out at him, your action would 
doubtless be an instinctive response. But if, upon receiving the insult, 
you should blush, the blushing would be an emotional response. 


It is not quite correct, however, to say that the emotional response 
is confined entirely to the subject’s own body. ‘There are also, as Watson 
and Rivers say, such emotional responses as gestures and random move- 
ments. A person in the shock of emotional excitement may be thrown into 
a “chaotic” state. He may collapse; “his cigarette may fall from his 
fingers ;” he may make rapid and “wild” movements with his arms and 
legs; throw things about or smash up the china; he may laugh or weep. 
These latter are movements of the whole body and are called by Dr. 
Rivers “ mass reactions.” Whatever movements are made, such emotional 
responses are non-adaptive. They do not put the organism, as do instinc- 
tive responses, into any effective relationship to the exciting situation. 
One must, to some extent, “get over” intense grief before he is able to 
take up again his daily tasks. He must “control his temper” if he is to 
be very effective in dealing with an irascible person. He should not be 
too “ sentimental’ if he is to be effective as a lover, or as a member of a 
family or a religious community, or as a citizen. He must master his shy- 
ness and embarrasment if he is to become a successful public speaker. 


Watson says there are several methods of studying emotions. The 
simplest is the genetic method, the method similar to the one which Watson 
used quite successfully in his study of instinct. Since emotions are in- 
herited modes of response it is well that some distinction be made between 
those emotional patterns which are inherited and those responses which 
are acquired. As in the study of instinct, therefore, Watson carefully ob- 
served the responses of small children. He found that there were at 
least three types of inherited emotional responses. 


First, the small child gives evidence of fear response, but this response 
is elicited by fewer objects than we commonly believe. Experiments were 
made with various animals both in light and in dark rooms, and infants 
did not show any fear of rats or dogs or black cats. | Watson says that 
the fear reaction will, however, take place when the child is dropped or 
when certain loud noises are heard. Second, a child will show anger 
when the movements of its arms and legs are restrained. Third, it will 
give evidences of Jove when its body is gently stroked. 

Our author, however, says, that the genetic method will not greatly 
enlighten us because, just as in the case of instincts, the inherited reaction 
patterns of emotion very soon become modified by habit and learning. 


108 


Another method he mentions is word reaction tests. This subject really 
belongs to psycho-analysis. Probably the best word reaction test is that 
of Jung. A list of 100 words is prepared and to each word as it is spoken 
by the experimenter, the test person is asked to respond by the first word 
that comes into his head. For instance, if the experimenter should say 
“house,” the test person might say “barn;” to the word “tree,” he 
might respond, with the word “leaf;” to the word “window” he might 
respond with the word “ glass;” so on and so on. Thus, by carefully not- 
ing the length of time which the test person normally requires in respond- 
ing his reaction time is learned. This is usually about 2/5ths of a 
second for ordinary words. There are in the list, however, certain 
words which are “complex words;”’ that is, they are associated with 
some emotional reflex, so that there is a balking in the association pro- 
cess between the fest word and the respond word. ‘The reaction time is 
lengthened in such cases and often a surprisingly irrelevant or unusual 
word is given. A careful study of these unusual words together with the 
words to which the reaction time was notably long and an analysis of the 
general type of response, gives the experimenter a very good insight into 
the emotional character of his subject. This test is frequently used in 
psycho-analysis in order to determine what repressed and forgotten ex- 
periences are causing certain emotional disturbances in the lives of nervous 
patients. Watson also suggests that the analysis of dreams may give us 
similar information. We discussed this point in our lecture on Freud. 
In fact, psycho-analysis, as we shall see later, is primarily concerned with 
the problems of emotional adjustment. 


Finally, Watson suggests a physiological study of the emotions. 
There are in the body various ductless glands, or endocrine glands. These 
glands—the thyroid located in the neck; the suprarenal gland located just 
above the kidneys; the pituitary gland located at the base of the brain, 
and others—have been much studied of late and their effects on bodily 
activity noted. It seems to be fairly well established now that the secre- 
tions of these glands have to do with certain of our emotions. This would 
appear, at any rate, to be the case with the activity of the thyroid and the 
suprarenal glands. Persons suffering with excessive thyroid function are 
apt to be very excitable, given to anxiety and fear, and their very facial 
expression suggests these emotions. They are often “flighty ” and jerky 
in their thoughts and movements. There are other definite physiological 
effects of excessive thyroid secretion, each of which must have some effect 
on the emotional life. The secretion of the suprarenal gland is known as 
adrenol. This substance can now be manufactured in chemical labora- 
tories; it is sold by druggists under the name “ adrenalin.”” The chemical 
analysis of the blood after emotional excitation will reveal certain changes 
in content, which changes may be regarded as important elements in the 
emotional responses which the organism makes to certain stimuli. For a 
valuable discussion of the function of these glands together with the au- 
tonomic nervous system, one should read the very interesting book by 
Si W. B. Cannon, called “ Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Rage and 

ear.” 


Dr. Cannon and the Physiology of Emotion. 


It is in the work of physiologists like Cannon that we learn what are 
the specific bodily changes in emotion, which James said must exist but 


109 


which he was unable, because of their complexity, to trace. A knowledge 
of these specific changes will show us more convincingly than James 
showed, that emotions have the function of adapting an organism to situa- 
tions. At least some of the bodily changes in emotion are now known to 
have the function of preparing the organism for strenuous exertion. 
Cannon’s work deals largely with the “autonomic” nervous system. He 
shows that this system is really three systems of nervous ganglia, located 
in the abdominal cavity and connected with various organs like the diges- 
tive organs, certain glands, and the unstriped muscles of the viscera and 
circulatory system. ‘The nerve ends of this system also connect all those 
geets which have nerve ends, running to them from the brain or spinal 
cord. 


The uppermost portion of the autonomic system is called the cranial. 
Cannon says that the cranial system governs those functions that have to 
do with nutrition; that is, with the general function of supplying the body 
with the sources of its energy and power. It regulates the flow of saliva 
and the various digestive fluids. The feelings associated with these func- 
tions are taste and delight in food—in fact, all those feelings which the 
Freudians tell us are connected with the “ food-getting instinct.” 


The middle part of the autonomic system is called the sympathetic. 
The function of this system is primarily to act as a check upon the others 
and to govern the secretion of such glands as the sweat glands, the 
gland which secretes adrenol, and the action of the liver in secreting sugar 
into the blood stream. These substances, adrenol and sugar, may be 
found by chemical analysis, when the organism experiences pain or great 
emotional excitement, especially rage and fear. Cannon says that the 
secretion of adrenol puts the organism on a “ war-footing.” Adrenol 
heightens the blood-pressure by contracting the muscles in the arteries. 
It increases respiration and on the whole causes a more rapid combustion 
of the cellular tissue of the body. Thus adrenol makes possible a very 
greatly increased output of energy. It also stimulates the liver to secrete, 
as I have just said, sugar. Sugar is a very volatile, combustible sub- 
stance and the extra supply of it in the blood equips the organism with 
the material which may be used up in intense activity. Thus, the emotions 
rage and fear are adaptive. They do not adapt the organism directly to 
any outside object but they adapt it to its own needs for exertion. 


The sacral or lowest portion of the autonomic system has to do with 
the emotions and the functions of sex. Whenever the cranial and sym- 
pathetic impulses meet in an aroused emotion, the sympathetic tends to 
inhibit the cranial functions, such as the secretion of saliva, gastric juice 
and bile. Hence, the dryness of the mouth accompanying the feeling of 
fear; hence, also, the likelihood of indigestion when food is taken while 
the subject is excited by fear or anger. Also when the sympathetic im- 
pulse meets with the impulses of the sacral system there is an inhibition 
of sex interest and function. From this Cannon argues, since all in- 
stinctive impulses when inhibited may arouse fear and anger, that the 
sympathetic system has the adaptive value of liberating energy so that the 
organism may overcome whatever obstacles stand in the way of its natural 
behavior, 


110 


Psycho-Analysis and Emotion. 


Finally, let us note what the Freudians have to say about emotion. 
In all abnormal mental life there is something the matter with the emo- 
tions. Very many nervous symptoms are the result of a “ fixation” of an 
emotion. As we saw in the lecture about Freud, the psycho-physical de- 
velopment of a child is a very long and complicated process. Every small 
infant has its emotional interests, largely fixed on its own body, and is 
chiefly concerned with the functions of “alimentation.” Later, the grow- 
ing child has its emotional interests largely directed to its parents. It 
loves them, trusts them, believes in them implicitly, and experiences as it 
will never again experience in the struggle for existence, freedom, a sense 
of self-importance, and a feeling of security. The adolescent youth must 
pass through certain emotional crises in which his emotional interest is 
relatively detached from the parent images and becomes directed toward 
the objects of his wider environment. In this way he is preparing him- 
self for what the Freudians call “‘ object love,” or normal attachment to 
a person of the opposite sex. 


Now in none of these transactions is the process an easy one. The 
individual always tends, so far as possible, to react to new situations in 
habitual ways, and to preserve those feelings which in a former stage of 
his development have given him satisfaction. If in any of these crises 
there is a shock, if there are tasks that are inadequately met, if because of 
previously acquired mental habits, the growing individual is unable to 
react with emotional adequacy to the new situations about him, he is 
likely to substitute for the facts memory images acquired in a previous 
period of his development—images, the contemplation of which give him 
consolation. Thus he may retain throughout his later life the emotional 
characteristics of an earlier period. 


For instance, the adolescent youth, breaking away from his parents, 
must frequently pass through a period of spiritual loneliness and of dis- 
illusionment concerning the father and mother whom in a previous period 
of his life he regarded as perfect beings. In adclescence also he becomes 
very much preoccupied with himself. He tends to distrust his powers, to 
compare himself with other persons, sometimes even to doubt if he is 
really a normal human being. He is strange to himself and the world has 
also become strange to him. What is more natural than that he should 
seek to make this larger new world a family affair, to conceive of it as 
similar to the situations which he once knew when parental care provided 
all his wants, held him to be the most precious person in the world, and 
protected him from all harm. 


A study of the psychology of religion shows that most normal people 
retain throughout their lives some degree of emotional fixation upon the 
parent image. Most of the emotions in religion have to do with this 
fixation. Wiuth psychopathic individuals this fixation is serious. The indi- 
vidual is never quite able to react emotionally as an adult. His feelings 
remain those of a child and and instead of meeting the tasks of his life, he 
is likely to return in imagination to the period of his childhood, take refuge 
in fictions and images that belong to that period, and preserve his childish 
emotional satisfactions at the cost of his own spiritual maturity and with 
great loss in the adequacy of his behavior. Thus adjusted to an earlier situ- 


lil 


ation in his history, he becomes unadjusted to the environment in which 
grown up persons must behave. These emotional fixations are survivals of 
childish habits of response and cause many neurotic phenomena, anxieties, 
and conflicts, and phobias and disturbances of all sorts. 


There is also an emotion of great psychological interest which we will 
discuss in a later lecture, the feeling of inferiority. It is enough to say 
here that the protest against this feeling is a very important sociological 
fact, giving rise to much morbid ambition, social unrest, crowd minded- 
ness, and quixotic reform. It will be remembered that in the lecture on 
Freud we discussed this author’s early papers on hysteria and we noted 
that Freud said that the symptoms of this disease were the result of cer- 
tain “trauma” or psychic wounds; in other words, that hysteria was the 
disease which often accompanied inability to react adequately to cer- 
tain experiences. Freud said that this inability of emotional response was 
due to the “suppression of the affect.” Freud further said that when 
the whole experience was restored to the memory of the sufferer, he lived 
through a period of intense emotional excitement which had all the ap- 
pearances of a delayed response to stimulus; that is, it was as if he now 
experienced the emotions which he should have experienced when the 
painful event occurred. Freud calls such delayed response “ abreaction ” 
and says that it is necessary to the cure of the patient. 


The problem of emotion, therefore, for psycho-analysis is that of 
securing adequacy of response. I do not mean merely unrepressed emo- 
tional outlet, but rather, also appropriate response. An emotionally bal- 
anced person is a normal person and the balance of emotion must be 
achieved through facing the facts both of ourselves and of our environ- 
ment. It is just the inability or unwillingness to face facts that causes 
most emotional disturbances in human life, 


Psychology and the Problem of Happiness. 


A consideration of the whole problem of emotion leads us to the view 
that emotional balance comes very near being a psychological definition of 
happiness. In this sense psychology aims to make people happy, for 
happiness is a matter of the emotions. Where there is conflict or per- 
sistent evasion of the tasks of life, happiness cannot be. Psychology 1s, 
therefore, concerned about adjustment. First, adjustment of the in- 
dividual to his environment and second, those habits of thought which 
enable an individual to bring a working harmony into the various elements 
of his own nature. 


The environment of modern civilization, in spite of all our ad- 
vantages, is hard. Probably in no period in history has there been so 
great a demand upon man as now, and perhaps also our mechanized 
society, together with our scientific view of the world, offers men fewer 
emotional consolations than in earlier periods of history. Undoubtedly 
the environment can be and has been improved in many ways, but it is 
doubtful if the total amount of happiness is greater now than it was in 
earlier times. Given any environment whatsoever, the psychological prob- 
lem remains. Men can be happy in any civilization only as they develop 
certain mental habits, which give them the capacity to act with emotional 
satisfaction, 


112 


People will always find their happiness in many different ways. There 
are those who find it in getting drunk. You will remember Harry Lauder’s 
song, “I ama miserable divel when I’m sober ; but I’m ha! vera, vera happy 
when I am full.’”’ Alcohol has the effect on many men of paralyzing cer- 
tain inhibitions and, therefore, of permitting the escape of certain emo- 
tional responses which vary all the way from conviviality to the maudlin 
sentimentalism of the drunkard. Again, people find happiness in loving 
and in being loved. Here, as we said before, happiness is not merely 
the pleasures of physical functions of sex. As I said before, a large and 
important element in love is the joy people take in being flattered. Notice 
the talk of lovers and you will see how much of their conversation is that 
of a little ‘mutual admiration society.” We feel greatly elated and im- 
portant when we are told that we are “all the world” to somebody and 
that we are beautiful. Then we become heroes in our own eyes and this 
self hero worship of lovers is so great a factor in this emotion that when 
mutual flattery stops love often flies out of the window. 


People also find happiness in wealth. Not merely in the physical 
enjoyment of this world’s goods, but in the sense of self-importance which 
possession brings them. So also with the happiness that comes through 
good workmanship and sociability. We are happy when our society is gen- 
erally sought and, as James once said, there could be no greater punishment 
for us than if everyone should “cut us dead.” We enjoy being “in” 
things. The same principle applies to the happiness which comes with free- 
dom. We are miserable when we are bossed about too much. The joy of 
freedom consists very largely in the happiness of the feeling that we are 
our “own boss.” The happiness of having a “good time” also consists 
largely in cutting loose from certain restraints, in adventure, in the sense 
of doing unusual things, hence, in experiencing life more largely; there- 
fore feeling ourselves to be more effective than we can possibly feel in the 
humdrum of every day life. 


Now in all these various forms of happiness it seems to me that there 
is at least one common element, an element which is recognized in popular 
speech when we say “enjoy yourself.”’ What we are enjoying when we 
enjoy anything is to some extent at least enjoyment of ourselves. Just as 
Freud says that in our dreams, which are the expression of repressed de- 
sires, we always are the hero, so in the wide-awake pursuit of happiness it 
is very important that the emotions about ourselves be those which are ap- 
propriate to the facts of the environment in which we have to live. I do 
not mean here to imply that there is nothing in happiness except the old 
principle of “ self-love.’’ I do mean that, since many of our deepest emo- 
tions have to do with ourselves, (and what else could we expect since we 
have seen that emotion is bodily feeling?) it is in regard to the self-feel- 
ings that the most conflicts of emotion may arise. 


The Freudians have found that many phobias and anxieties vanish 
when one is taught to face courageously the facts about himself. The con- 
trol of emotion, therefore, is not to be achieved merely by making con- 
scious efforts to feel in desired ways. Emotion is an inherited mode of 
response. Like instinct, the original patterns become modified by learn- 
ing and by habit. They depend often upon our general bodily condition or 
state of health. One can seldom repress an emotion just by deliberately 
willing to do so. You may compel yourself to have kindly intentions 


113 


toward a person whom you do not love, but you will probably not, by mak- 
ing an effort to do so, force yourself to love such a person. In a moment 
of anger you may control certain overt actions by an effort of the will, but 
you will usually not thereby dispel the feeling. So, in moments of de- 
pression, a person suffering with melancholy may make the most strenuous 
efforts in the world to rid himself of this feeling without success, 


The Control and Guidance of Emotion. 


There is, however, a way of controlling the emotional life, and that 
is through the formation of the right habits of thinking. We see an ex- 
cellent illustration of this in respect to humor. What is the difference be- 
tween the person with a very refined and subtle sense of humor and the 
coarse, vulgar guffawing ruffian with his? I think the difference is not 
primarily a difference in the native capacities for feeling of the two 
men. The difference consists in the sort of objects which they have 
learned to notice and to react to. The training, then, of the sense of 
humor, is a training of the intelligence in discrimination uf the capacity 
to make fine distinctions. 


We also see an illustration of this point if we compare the super- 
ficial person of the maudlin and sentimental type with the more genuine 
type. Sentimentality is emotional superficiality, not because the feelings 
themselves are less genuine but because superficial people have not learned 
to think for themselves and therefore they try to feel, at certain times, 
in ways which they imagine that other persons will regard as proper or as 
conventional. When such persons acquire the habit of thinking for them- 
selves, it frequently happens that their entire emotional life becomes 
richer and fuller, simply as a result of more honest and genuine thought. 
So with the emotions generally. If we can discipline our thought pro- 
cess, compel ourselves to see the facts of life and of ourselves as they really 
are; if we can learn the habits with which to meet situations with the 
appropriate responses, such habits will stand us in good stead. In the 
moments of emotional crises we shall find that straight thinking generally 
helps us to have adequate feeling. Great as are the emotional differences 
among people, they are probably not so much due to inborn differences 
in our inherited mode of response as they are due to the differences in 
men’s capacity to learn. In other words, the greatest differences among 
men are the intellectual differences. The difference, then, between psy- 
chopathic emotionalism and the emotional response of the normal in- 
dividual is due wholly to those habits of thinking which throughout a long 
experience each has been gradually forming. To live richly and fully, 
with a sense of satisfaction, the first requirement is that one learn to 
think, This leads us to our next lecture, 





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LECTURE IX 
A Lecture on How We Think. 





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A LECTURE ON HOW WE THINK 


S MAN a rational being? This is a perplexing question. When one 
considers the amount of thinking that goes on in the world it is difficult 
to decide whether to draw an optimistic or a pessimistic conclusion. When 
we think of the fruits of science and realize what heights of triumph the 
human reason has attained in its masterful knowledge of the detailed facts 
of nature, we may for the moment indulge ourselves in the fancy or hope 
that man, through the use of his intelligence, may yet control the forces 
of this earth. And yet, we have seen many of the achievements of science 
turned to engines of human destruction for ends which were set by passion 
rather than by reason. 


Again one may look at our folkways and conventions and see that 
many of them are stupid and wrong-headed, evolved by the masses, not as 
intelligent solutions of problems, but for ends which were wholly irrelevant 
to the situations in which these customs of ours regulate our behavior. 
And yet, such customs survive and seem to have survival value for people 
who practice them. 


Or one thinks of the scientist or philosopher whom he knows in life. 
Professionally those men are so clear-eyed and hard-headed, so objective 
and capable of impersonal thinking; and yet each, perhaps, being, after 
all quite human, has his soft spot. There are situations in the life of the 
most reasonable person, a person with the best-trained mind, which he 
finds it impossible to deal with rationally. One wonders how much reason 
has to do with human behavior taken as a whole, and how much such 
behavior is the fruit of chance, of superstitious belief, of personal interest, 
dogma and tradition. The older philosophers seemed to believe that reason 
was a faculty which needed gnly to be exercised and trained in order to 
assume the proper ascendency in the life of men. Socrates held that 
knowledge could only be attained by the exercise of reason; that knowl- 
edge was, therefore, the possession of the few, the philsosphers; whereas 
the thinking of the masses did not bring them knowledge of the truth 
but resulted only in “ opinion.” 


However, Socrates believed that this faculty of reason did exist in 
everyone and that men, therefore, had knowledge which they did not know 
they possessed. He felt that it was the task of the philosopher to draw 
such hidden knowledge out of the recesses of the human spirit. Kant 
seemed to think that Reason was the same for all minds; that, whereas 
“pure” reason could not give us ultimate reality, nevertheless, the laws 
of thought were the same in all and universal. So in describing the 
various kinds of judgments which the human mind may form, Kant felt 
that he was giving us an account of universal reason. 


To the student of modern psychology, such views as I have just 
outlined are far from adequate. Undoubtedly there are certain principles 
of logic which the trained mind ordinarily may follow in pursuing its 
thought processes, but it is doubtful if any one’s mind habitually works 
in such formal ways. James once said that our temperament dominates 


[117] 


118 


our thinking to an amazing degree, even the thinking of the greatest 
philosopher. Freud and Jung have shown that the unconscious makes 
its presence felt, together with its repressed desires, wish-fancies, and 
fears, even in the work of the most “dry-as-dust”” philosophers. Many 
persons resent the existence of what James calls the “ will to believe,” 
but as a description of the way in which most thinking goes on, James 
gave in this phrase a fairly accurate account of what happens. 


Various Kinds of Thinking. 


It may be said that there are various kinds of thinking. There is, 
first, reverie. Second, there is what might be called trial-and-error think- 
ing, the kind of thinking that perhaps animals do. ‘Third, there is the 
thinking which consists in solving problems. Fourth, there is what Freud 
would call rationalization. 


Reverie, as Dewey and James have both shown, makes up the greater 
part of the mental experience of us all. James says much of our thinking 
consists of trains of images suggested by one another, of a sort of spon- 
taneous reverie, of which it seems likely enough that the higher brutes 
should be capable. . . . Links between the ideas are either contiguity 
or similarity. . . . Asa rule in this sort of irresponsible thinking, 
the ideas which follow and are coupled together are “ empirical concretes ” 
and not abstractions. “A sunset may call up a vessel’s deck from which I 
saw one last summer, the companions of my voyage, my arrival into port, 
and so forth. Or it may make me think of solar myths; of Hercules’s 
and Hector’s funeral pyres; of Homer and whether he could write; of 
the Greek alphabet, and so on.” James also tells us that there are 
minds to whom the sunset means only supper time or calls up some 
superficial platitude. He says, “If the habitual contiguities predominate, 
we have a prosaic mind; if rare contiguities or similarities have free 
play, we call the person fanciful, poetic or witty. But the thought as a 
rule is of matters of fact in their entirety. 


Thinking of this sort has been called “ free association,” day dreaming, 
“wool gathering.” If one’s thoughts appear to run at random and 
without effort—one thought making us think of another and that of a 
third, and so without any voluntary direction—we speak of such thinking 
as reverie. 


In normal persons this reverie is usually of a pleasant nature and 
the psychopathologists have shown us that day dreams are pleasant, not 
merely because we make no effort to think in this fashion, but because 
such thinking, like dreaming, consists wholly in those wish-fancies which 
give us imaginary escape from realities and also provide us with consola- 
tion in our losses and failures and have the function, on the whole, of 
bolstering up our self-feeling. If you try to catch yourself in such 
moments of reverie, you will probably notice that what you are doing 
is making an imaginary hero of yourself. 

Of course, we like to be heroic in our own eyes, and to imagine 
the world to be congenial to us; therefore, the ease with which we day- 
dream and the difficulty, frequently, of inducing ourselves to face the cold, 
hard, facts of life. This type of reverie, aside from the part which it 
plays in poetry and in art, does not greatly aid us in intelligent behavior. 
Yet we find that there is a place, even in the most scientific thinking, 


119 


where something like this is necessary if new and fruitful—creative—ideas 
are to occur. There is a place where new associations among things must 
just “pop” into our heads. No effort on our part and no training can 
ever make an idea which has not been thought before come into anyone’s 
mind. We shall see why this is so later in the lecture. 


The second kind of thinking I have called trial-and-error thinking. 
This is hardly the correct term. It might also be called routine thinking, 
as I believe Dewey calls it. I use the term in this connection because the 
type of thinking we are now discussing consists very largely of associations 
of ideas which we have learned very much as animals learn. In the 
lecture on Habit you will remember that I referred to experiments in 
animal training like those of Thorndike and others. An animal may be 
put in a box. He must learn to pull a latch-string in order to unlock 
the door and escape. For a long time he makes frantic efforts which are 
for the most part pure random movements; finally, by accident he will 
hit upon the movement which leads him to success. The second time he 
is placed in the box it will not require so long for the animal to make 
the successful movement. Slowly there will be built up in the mind of 
the animal an association between the movement that leads to success 
and the experience of escaping. After a sufficient period of training, 
the animal will pull the string of the latch after only one trial. Now in 
this type of learning it is not necessary to assume that there has been 
any intelligent act of looking over the situation or of consideration on the 
part of the animal. Having once learned the trick, he will perform it 
whenever he is placed in a certain situation. 


In the same lecture (on Habit) I said that most of the things men 
learn are learned in this way, and that most of the thinking we do 
is of this sort. One has been taught a trade or a profession or a 
foreign language or certain ethical, patriotic, or religious principles. All 
of these elements of his teaching are what we saw Watson calls “‘ con- 
ditioned reflexes.” We carry a great many such systems of reflexes about 
with us as a part of our organization and upon most occasions we simply 
permit a situation to stimulate us to behave or speak in the habitual way. 
And, as according to Watson, thinking is just sub-vocal talking or implicit 
language habit, it would seem that most of our thinking is of this routine 
“trained animal ” sort. 


People who merely repeat what they have been taught in childhood 
very seldom experience any other kind of thinking. When it is suggested 
that “people think for themselves,’ what is really meant is that they 
break these routine habits and, instead of acting in the strictly habitual 
way, stop and consider the situation in which they find themselves. In the 
above quotation of James, it will be noticed that he says such association 
proceeds by coupling together “ empirical concretes,”’ not abstractions. This 
is true even in cases where one has learned to repeat certain abstract 
principles which he has been taught. A religious, patriotic or moral 
idea, for instance, may be nothing more than a phrase which an individual 
repeats as a part of his conditioned laryngeal reflexes in precisely the 
same manner (and on a very little higher mental plane) as Thorndike’s 
animal pulls the latch string. 


120 


As James says, speaking of animal thinking, “ The idea in question 
is of an object about which nothing further may articulately be known. 
The thought of it prompts to activity but to no theoretic consequences.” 
If you will analyse your own thoughts throughout a day or study the 
speech and conduct of people about you with this in mind, you will see 
that it is possible to go through a whole day’s activities and never once 
have a thought that is not of this strictly routine nature. In fact, a large 
portion of the human race lives its entire mental life on this level. We 
may get up in the morning, dress ourselves in the way we have learned, 
eat our breakfast in the routine fashion, repeat the customary phrases 
that go with the various activities in which we are engaged, do our work 
in the way we learned to do it, talk as we heard others talk, eat the 
food we see others eating, repeat the stories we have heard, draw the 
conventional inferences from the facts about us, attend a motion picture 
in which all the situations are trite and all the captions platitudes, 
read the newspaper editorials which merely repeat the notions which we 
already believe, go to a patriotic or religious meeting where we are again 
told the “ old, old, story.” 


New situations and new possibilities of experience and insights may 
be all about us and yet we may never see them at all till our dying day. 
If our environment should remain forever the same, the human race could 
get along fairly well with this sort of thinking, though, of course, it could 
make no progress. On most occasions we should probably do the “ right 
thing,” for by the “right thing” most people mean the thing which is 
usually done on a given occasion. 


But the world in which we live is a changing world, and situations 
are always confronting us in which customary ways are irrelevant. The 
intelligent person, therefore, is one who tries to behave and think in 
ways which are relevant as well as conventional or traditional. This 
kind of thinking I wish to call problem solving thinking. In most cases, 
there is, as Dewey says, “an obstruction in the way.” He says, “As 
long as our activity glides smoothly along from one thing to another, or 
as long as we permit our imagination to entertain fancies at pleasure, there 
is no call for reflection. In the suspense of uncertainty, we meta- 
phorically climb a tree; we try to find some standpoint from which 
we may survey additional facts and, getting a more commanding view of 
the situation, may decide how the facts stand related to one another.” 


This solving of problems is thinking proper. It is creative thinking. 
It consists primarily in picking out of any situation the significant or 
relevant factor and then of comparing that factor with something else. In 
this way new likenesses are discovered which enable us to deal with facts 
in new ways. James says, “In reasoning we pick out essential qualities.” 
Al In reasoning A may suggest B, but B, instead of being an 
idea which is simply obeyed by us, is an idea which suggests the distinctly 
additional idea C. . . . The result C, yielded by a true act of reason- 
ing, is apt to be a thing voluntarily sought. It is not suggested immediately 
by the things given. It may be neither the result of our habitual forms 
of association of ideas nor does it need to be similar to the thing which 
suggests it. It may be a thing entirely unknown to our previous 
experience.” 


121 


This singling out of the relevant factor is called analysis and abstrac- 
tion. Things are no longer thought of in their entirety. The mind must 
have the sagacity to seize upon the one thing that may be said about a fact 
which is most important if one is to be led to a desired conclusion. Thus 
about the table on which I am writing an infinite number of things may 
be said. It has some relation to everything in the universe. But if I am 
a collector of antiques, I seize upon the significant fact that this is 
probably a Chippendale and not an imitation. As I am interested in 
writing, I seize upon the fact that the table is a comfortable one to work 
on. James reduced this sort of reasoning to the syllogism, 


“ Call the fact or concrete datum S; 
the essential attribute M; 
the attribute’s property P. 


“Then the reasoned inference of P from S cannot be made without 
M’s intermediation. The ‘essence’ M is thus that third or middle term 
in the reasoning which a moment ago was pronounced essential. For this 
original concrete S the reasoner substitutes its abstract property, M. What 
is true of M, what is coupled with M, then holds true of S, is coupled 
with S. As M is properly one of the parts of the entire S, reasoning may 
then be very well defined as the substitution of parts and their implications 
or consequences for wholes. And the art of the reasoner will consist of 
two stages: ‘ 


“ First, sagacity, or the ability to discover what part, M, lies embedded 
in the whole S which is before him; 


“ Second, learning, or the ability to recall promptly M’s consequences, 
concomitants, or implications. 


“If we glance at the ordinary syllogism: 


SrisAVie St 
Ninise. Bes 
Saiseiy: 


—we see that the second or minor premise, the ‘ subsumption,’ 4$ it is 
sometimes called, is the one requiring the sagacity; the first or major, the 
one requiring the fertility or fulness of learning. Usually the learning 
is more apt to be ready than the sagacity, the ability to seize fresh aspects 
in concrete things being rarer than the ability to learn old rules; so that, 
in most actual cases of reasoning, the minor premise, or the way of con- 
ceiving the subject, is the one that makes the novel step in thought.” 


Now the important thing in this is, that there is no property which 
is absolutely essential to any one thing. “All ways of conceiving an object 
are equally true if they are true at all.” It is just as true to say that 
my table is 285,000 miles from the moon as to say that it is a comfortable 
table to work on. The important thing is to be able to seize upon the 
relevant factor. 


Perhaps I can make this matter clear by an illustration. Let us note 
the way in which Darwin probably arrived at the theory of natural 
selection, or “ descent with modification.” Darwin in the voyage of the 


122 


Beagle notices that the plants and animals on crastial islands bear certain 
striking resemblances to and differences from those on the mainland. He 
notices also that there are indications that the shoreline has changed with 
the rising and falling of the land surface. Thus he is led to say that 
the changes in the environment have produced the changes in the forms of 
life on these islands. Comparing the creatures on the island with those on 
the mainland, Darwin notices certain changes or modifications. And 
the noticing of these modifications makes him think of similar modifications 
which are produced by stock breeders and farmers. Darwin knows that 
these lat.er modifications are brought about through a process of selective 
breeding. So the thought flashes through the great naturalist’s mind, 
that perhaps environmental factors bring about a form of selective breeding 
similar to that which farmers use in producing new varieties of plants and 
animals. Hence, natural selection. Here is a new and thought-revolu- 
tionizing hypothesis. Let us see if we can state it in the same terms that 
James states his syllogism: 


S is the environment; 

M is the fact of modification of plants and animals; 

P is the modification produced by selective breeding on 
the part of farmers; 


Hence, S is P—the essential fact of environment in its modification 
of plants and animals. In other words, the environment behaves like a 
farmer; or a contingent acting through geological times is like a farmer. 


Now this is absolutely a new association of ideas. It is a comparison 
which has not been made before. There is nothing in the shoreline of 
an island which would, in and of itself, ever cause anybody to say that a 
continent is like a farmer. Darwin never could have said this except for 
the fact that, of all the things that could be noted about these islands 
near the shore, his mind seized upon one very significant factor—the 
modification of plants and animals. There is no reason why he should not 
have thought of other things; no reason why he should have picked out 
this; but, having singled it out as the significant element, he is at once 
made to think of stock breeders. 


The fact that stock breeders change the forms of animals and plants 
by selective breeding is something which it does not require any genius 
to know. Knowledge of this fact is simply a matter of information. But 
the ability to seize the significant factor regarding the modifications men- 
tioned above and the ability to see likenesses between the modifications 
produced by environment and those produced by selective breeding is 
something which cannot be taught. It must pop into the right man’s 
head at the right time. There is no device for making such an idea ever 
come into a man’s mind. It just has to walk in unexpectedly. It may 
be the idea one has been seeking for a long time, but it remains unknown 
until it makes its appearance in consciousness. When it does make its 
appearance, one must have sagacity enough to say, “this is precisely the 
unknown idea I have been looking for.” 


Notice then that fruitful or intelligent thinking consists partly in 
learning and partly in right ways of conceiving things; in making correct 


123 


analyses; in seizing significant factors and in making unhabitual com- 
parisons. Once Darwin said that environment is like a farmer, he gains 
a new insight into the cause of the modification of species which, if 
verified, upsets the thinking of 2,000 years. 


James’s account of thinking, which we have just discussed, has import- 
ant theoretical consequences. Everything depends upon our seizing the 
right factor or, in other words, upon noticing and saying the right and 
relevant thing about a fact. To the chemist, water must be thought of as 
H,0. To the hydro-electrician, it must be conceived of as a falling fluid, 
the weight of which contains so many foot-pounds of energy. To the 
ice-man, water is a very different thing. To the thirsty man it is 
different still. And it becomes something wholly different in the thought 
of a Nantucket whaler. Water is no more truly H,0 than it is a place 
where whales swim, and, if we are to be successful as chemists or as 
engineers or as fishermen, we must note the factor which is significant 
for our purpose and ignore all the rest for the time being. Thinking 
therefore, is partial. It depends on purpose. It is for the sake of acting. 
It is by noticing the relevant aspects of things and by comparing these 
relevant aspects of things in new ways that situations have any meaning 
for us at all. All the meanings in the world are the result of this 
human partiality of ours. Thinking does not merely copy given meanings. 
It creates them whenever it achieves new and helpful comparisons among 
things. To a mind which was impartial to all the aspects of all things 
the world would have no meaning. A mind equally interested in everything 
would not be particularly interested in anything. In other words, it would 
be interested in nothing and, if interested in nothing, nothing would have 
any meaning since all things, being equally inevitable, would be equally 
important and indifferent. 


What we call truths are meanings which lead us to satisfactory results 
in thought and in behavior. Our thoughts become true when they are 
verified. Translate “verify” from the Latin into the English and you 
will see that thoughts become true when we “ make” them “true.” Truth 
is created by man and for man. Our minds do not get eternal principles 
or “ given truths.”’ They merely create new and unforeseen yet tremend- 
ously valuable and helpful comparisons. He who can fruitfully associate 
facts which independently of himself would never have been thought of as 
belonging together can think. 


You will remember that in the lecture on Habit I discussed Dr. 
Watson’s theory that thinking is sub-vocal talking or implicit language 
habit. He says that we think with our whole body, but primarily with 
our vocal cords and laryngeal muscles. To many students this is a rather 
startling assertion. But after all the important element in thinking is not 
where we think or with what organs the thinking processes take place; the 
important element is how we think. How we think is really of greater 
significance than of what we think. Propagandists of all sorts are always ° 
concerned with what people think. Of course, it is important that we 
should entertain certain opinions and ideas. Social adjustment is possible 
only when there is a certain amount of agreement among people and obvi- 
ously there is a vital distinction between truths and errors. We should 


124 


strive all our lives to correct the errors which abound in the thinking of us 
all. But one who centers his attention on what is thought, rather than 
how he thinks, is more prone to error than the person who practices intel- 
lectual self-criticism. He who changes his beliefs merely because he has 
been “converted” from one group of current opinions to another may 
have been only reshuffling his prejudices. He may be the same man 
after he has changed his opinions as he was before. 


The thinker lives through his experiences. They modify him. He 
who has achieved correct mental habits may still be mistaken about a great 
many things. But he is at least less likely to be “taken in” by specious 
arguments and by sentimental appeal than is the other man. Much of 
our public discussion about matters political, social, religious and moral, 
consists of the most violent assumptions, and for the spirit of investiga- 
tion there is substituted commonly a partisan spirit even regarding matters 
where knowledge is easily accessible. The partisan spirit indulges itself 
in wild generalizations and in what Dr. Sheffield calls “detonators of 
irrelevant emotional outbursts.” Intelligent public discussion is almost 
impossible for the reason that people ordinarily are not using their language 
habits in order to solve problems. They are striving to vindicate their 
principles; not to verify their hypotheses. 


Good and Bad Habits of Thinking. 


Bad thinking habits are so common that perhaps we should strive 
to get a clear notion of what some of them are, so that we may put 
ourselves on our guard against them. Professor Dewey says that the 
great difference among men is between those who think in a dull, slavish 
and routine way and those who can intervene in the course of events with 
purpose and with some foresight of the results of their behavior. If you 
will note most of the discussion of ethical and religious matters, for 
instance, you will see that the opinions of men on these subjects are very 
often not based upon consideration of results but are the deductions from 
things which are quite irrelevant to the situation in hand. There are 
various influences which cause us to be victims of routine methods of 
thinking. Professor Dewey says that school conditions have much to 
do with this. It has long been the practice in our schools to require of 
the student merely the given and correct answer. The student acquires 
the habit of feeling that in finding the correct answer to a question which 
the teacher asks he is learning to think. As Professor Robinson says, 
schools and colleges are places where there is “much teaching but no 
learning.” Undoubtedly there are influences about most of our educational 
institutions which have little to do with the true educational aim but are 
concerned chiefly with molding the student to type, equipping him with 
ready-made answers in life, fixing his habits in such a way as to kill his 
natural curiosity and to assure his educators that he will thereafter think 
and behave in the ways that he has been taught. 


Closely related with this is the habit of depending upon others for 
our opinions. As little children we necessarily live under parental authority. 
If we wish to know a thing we ask our parents, though, unfortunately, 
there are many important matters concerning which we later learn that 
they did not tell us the truth. Nevertheless, the habit persists of quoting 


125 


authorities, especially for the opinions we wish to hold. We like to be 
told what to think. We feel that whatever is written in some sacred 
book must necessarily be true, and true for the reason that it was 
written there. I know people who believe that the only reason why we 
should not kill or steal is because it is so written in the Bible. There are 
others who swear by the writings of Karl Marx or the Koran or the 
New York “Times.” I knew a man who had a tremendous reverence 
for anything in print, particularly a book that dealt with historical matters, 
without regard to who the author of the book might have been and with- 
out questioning the accuracy of his statement. This student would say, 
“ History says so and so.” 


Recently I saw an illustration of this attitude in a class of very 
bright young workers to whom it has been my task to teach psychology. 
A series of extremely interesting problems in industrial psychology was 
up for discussion. Many of the problems were of such a nature that psy- 
chology in its present stage has no data upon which to frame an answer. 
About all that could be done was to state the problems and try to get the 
class to approach some of these industrial matters from a psychological 
point of view. Therefore, we decided to turn the sessions of the class into 
conferences, feeling that the discussion would help us to pick out the 
significant factors and isolate certain problems for investigation and 
research. It was necessary for the instructor to use the Socratic method, 
telling the class that the value of the course would be in the fact that 
together we should investigate subjects which had not hitherto been worked 
out. One of the ablest students in the class said, “ But, Mr. Martin, are 
you not wasting our time? We are here to be taught; not merely to con- 
duct experiments.” Here was an intelligent young radical who in spite of 
her intellectual independence in some things, would have felt herself 
more at home in a course of study where the instructor dispensed ready- 
made information than in a course where she was required to do some 
original thinking. 


Our dependence upon others is the cause of much of that credulity 
which permits the uncritical acceptance of rumors. We had many exam- 
ples of this during the war. There were large sections of the public who 
believed, without question, almost any story that was told about the enemy. 
I find a pamphlet published in 1918 in which there is a statement that the 
Germans were deliberately starving thousands of Polish people and grind- 
ing up their bones for fertilizer. Statements of this nature were current 
throughout the nation and we had the feeling that they should not be 
questioned. Anyone who did seek the truth in these matters was felt 
in some way to be disloyal to the Republic. 


We see the same credulity among men whom, by their professional 
training and education, we should expect to be the very incarnation of 
accuracy. I find among my newspaper clippings an article which appeared 
in the New York “ Tribune” in April, 1919. This was the time when 
the public was very much concerned with the alleged bolshevist propa- 
ganda in this country. The article in question says: “Last night the 
savings bank section of the American Bankers’ Association sent out letters 
to the heads of all the savings banks asking their co-operation in a move- 
ment to induce returning immigrants to stay in this country, 


126 


The letter said: ‘Due to bolshevik propaganda an alarming proportion of 
the fourteen million foreign born aliens are drawing their money from 
the banks, selling their liberty bonds and houses, and returning to 
Europe. . . . It is estimated that about 1,300,000 cannot be stopped 
from going and that they will carry with them nearly $4,000,000,000 or 
four-fifths of the total currency in circulation and in reserve in the United 
States before the war.’ ” 


Such credulity is not confined to Bankers’ Associations. It is common 
among persons of all classes. In the West I met a prohibitionist recently 
who told me with absolute assurance that the reason the Germans lost the 
battle of the Marne was because they all got drunk on champagne while 
going through a wine-growing district of France. Radicals are just as 
credulous as conservatives. Listen to any soap-box speaker and you will 
get an amazing account of all sorts of diabolical conspiracies which the 
capitalists are alleged to be perpetrating. In fact it is this willingness to 
accept as fact whatever is repeated often enough that makes the public 
the easy victim of all sorts of propaganda. The first requirement for 
sound thinking is that one develop habits of doubt. No one can learn to 
think until he has first learned to doubt. 


Another cause of routine thinking is our natural inertia. People are 
intellectually lazy. Most men would rather make violent physical effort 
than exert themselves mentally. Thinking requires effort and some degree 
of risk. In thinking there is always a period of suspended judgment. It is 
much easier to go on with our minds made up than to revise our pre-sup- 
positions. Once we have settled a thing we wish never to be made to 
question it again, particularly if we have long believed it and have asso- 
ciated many other things with it. Liberals are often as prone to 
this sort of thing as re-actionaries. In one of Shaw’s plays, an elderly 
man says to the young hero, “I was a liberal before you were born, 
sir.’ To which the hero answers, “I knew it must have been a long 
time ago.” Whether one is a liberal or a radical he is as likely as anyone 
else to reduce his thinking to a set formula and to cling to it with all his 
might. As Dewey quotes Locke, “There are men whose intellect is 
cast into a mould and just fashioned to the size of a received hypothesis.” 
In other words, people of different shades of opinion often hold their pet 
ideas as watch dogs, which are kept about for the sole purpose of running 
out and barking and scaring other ideas away. So an idea once accepted 
becomes a going concern. One lives with it so long that he gets the habit 
of it. 


One may repeat a story which in the beginning he knew was not true, 
but after repeating it again and again he will come to believe it. I knew 
an old soldier of this type once. He had passed through the Civil War 
uninjured. In the early nineties, the government was very liberal with 
pensions, especially to those men who had their health impaired during 
the war. This particular veteran finally remembered that during his 
encampment in the South he once had an attack of indigestion. It was 
after he had eaten some mince pie baked by a Southerner. At first he 
said that perhaps there had been some poison put in the pie; later he 
said the poison must have been powdered glass; finally that it was pow- 
dered glass. For several years he told how during the war he had 


127 


eaten powdered glass and finally, in all good faith, he applied to the 
government for a pension and received it on the ground that he had been 
injured in this way while in the service. To-day nothing in the world 
could make him doubt this story. He is a wounded hero. 


There are many people who hold their religious and political convic- 
tions in such a manner. They have repeated for so many years the 
stock phrases of their faith that the mere repetition of them finally fixes 
certain language habits and in the end what was once held with very little 
conviction becomes a fundamental. One evening after we had heard a 
lecture at Cooper Union on Eugenics, in the course of which the lecturer 
had mentioned our duty to future generations, a kind-faced old man 
came up to the platform and said, “ But, professor, there are not going 
to be any future generations. The book of Daniel says . . .” Inthe 
same way causes that have once been fought for persist long after the 
battle 1s won or lost. There are women who worked for suffrage who 
now, though they have won their cause, are still militant for “‘ women’s 
rights.” Down South they were twenty-five years after it was all over, 
still fighting the Civil War. And there are people who go on repeating 
religious beliefs of various sorts a whole half-century or more after the 
consensus of intelligent and scientific thought has rendered them untenable. 
I am sure that with a little effort one could find in almost any community 
a number of persons who still believe that the earth is flat. 


Thus our beliefs come to take on a ceremonial character. They area 
sort of rigamarole. One who has had much experience with public dis- 
cussion comes to be deeply impressed by: the fact that many persons 
see in such discussion, not an occasion for inquiry, but merely an oppor- 
tunity for standing up and repeating their creeds. Every cult and party 
tends to sterotype the minds of its adherents so that in the end the same 
phrases are likely to be repeated by most of the members and in almost 
the same tones of voice. Thus there is a typical revivalist sermon; a typical 
socialist speech ; a typical single-tax address; a typical republican argument 
for the tariff and so on. 


Not only is much thinking paralyzed by the habits of routine which 
we have just discussed, but there are also many instances where opinion 
is determined, not by the evidence in the case, but by factors which are quite 
irrelevant. There are many subjects which we cannot bring ourselves to in- 
vestigate with an open mind because we fear that our conclusions may com- 
pel us to revise some other belief which has nothing directly to do with the 
subject. I know persons who will not read Freud because they fear that 
he may cause them to become critical in respect to certain conventional 
and authoritarian beliefs they may have about ethics. There are other 
persons who refuse to approach the study of biology with an open mind 
because they fear that if they should accept the doctrine of evolution they 
might have to change their preconceived notions concerning the meaning 
of the book of Genesis. 


This irrelevancy may sometimes have serious consequences as when 
certain municipal or school authorities demand a revision of the accounts 
in history text books of the American Revolution. These men are not so 
much concerned with the truth of these accounts as they are motivated 
by their hatred of England. England must always be wrong, in every 


128 


detail, and any facts which cause us to question this notion are wicked 
facts, and a good patriot should neither write nor read about them. It is 
interesting to see how this irrelevancy influences even intelligent men. 
If you tell me a person’s belief about social problems, whether he is a 
radical or a liberal or a conservative, I will undertake to tell you what he 
will think concerning the purely biological question of the inheritance of 
acquired characters. And in most cases I am sure I should be correct. 
Now, of course, the question whether acquired characters are inherited 
must be settled on biological and not sociological ground. Yet such is 
seldom the case with the average man. Men very often believe or refuse to 
believe a thing, not because they have made an effort to find out if it is so, 
but because of the effect of that belief on their favorite theories. The love 
of truth is rare. What men love is their own “truths,” that is their opin- 
ions. People who can not love truth itself can not think because they can 
not pay attention to that which is relevant. It is necessary, therefore, if we 
are to develop habits of correct thinking that we stick to the point. We 
should carefully watch ourselves to see if we are permitting our thought 
to be drawn from the recognition of facts by interests which have nothing 
to do with the case. 


The third hindrance to habits of correct thinking is what psychologists 
call rationalization. In our lecture about Freud we saw that rationalization 
is not solving of problems. It is an invention of plausibilities by which 
behavior that is motivated by unconscious impulses or repressed wishes 
may be made to appear to consciousness as reasonable conduct. Much 
of our rationalization consists in the fabrication of mechanisms the func- 
tion of which is to invent ideal consolations or imaginary escapes from 
realities, or justifications of anti-social behavior trends. Thus when a 
nation making war upon its neighbors persuades itself that it is the inno- 
cent and injured party and that it is interested only in peace, the thinking 
of that nation on that subject is rationalization. I find a beautiful example 
of rationalization in to-day’s newspapers. An announcement is made that 
an army officer will give a lecture to-night on the subject, “ The Benevolent 
Uses of Poison Gas.” 


Many of our rationalizations have the function of preserving our 
egotism. We wish to feel ourselves important and therefore, if there is 
anything which arouses in us the feeling of inferiority, our thinking about 
that subject is sure to be characterized by rationalization. Thus people 
who live in rural communities and are made to feel “ countrified’”’ when 
they come to town, very often believe that all large cities are ‘“ wicked.” 
So persons who can not understand or follow difficult scientific discussions 
frequently preserve their self-appreciative feelings by denouncing the 
scientists as fools or as enemies of religion. Crowdmen always have a 
habit of preserving their crowd ideas in the face of contrary evidence 
by denouncing the person who does not agree with them. The very 
existence of such a person is a witness to contrary evidence and his 
testimony must be discredited. So, many prohibitionists believe that if one 
does not accept their doctrine he is “ bought up by the liquor gang.” And 
there are socialists who hold that if one is an individualist it must be that 
he is either a coward or in secret league with the capitalists. It is a 
common habit with religious sects to hold that unbelievers are wicked 
persons who should rightly be punished with hell-fire. 


129 


Sometimes our rationalizations take on elaborate ramifications. There 
is much rationalization of this sort in the old 19th century humanitarian 
doctrine—still held by many liberals and radicals—that man is by nature 
good and that if anyone is bad or ignorant or foolish it is only because 
he has been held down by a wicked master class or by a vicious environ- 
ment; that all that is necessary to make everyone good and wise is to 
improve the environment. Of course, this thinking may have in it a 
measure of truth, as much rationalization may, but its real function is 
frequently that of justifying belief in an ideal commonwealth of some 
sort. And the very ideal of such a commonwealth is for many persons 
a rationalization of the wish to return to the golden age of childhood; 
in other words, it is frequently a rationalization of what the Freudians 
call the “infantile return ” or fixation upon the mother image. 


Finally, there is rationalization which has the function of justifying 
anti-social behavior. If a mob lynches a negro or sets out to tar and 
feather some helpless victim it always persuades itself that it is motivated, 
not, as it is, by a love of cruelty, but by the loftiest of moral principles. 
Rationalization is really compulsive thinking and by compulsive thinking I 
mean that there are many thoughts which persons both normal and 
abnormal entertain because they cannot help entertaining them. Such 
persons can never be convinced by evidence. They resent anyone who 
calls their attention to the facts because rationalization is not concerned 
with facts. Jt is an attempt to escape from fact, 


* kek Ke * K K K * 


The student should cultivate the habit of noticing when his thinking 
and that of other persons is rationalization and when it is problem-solving 
thinking. Civilization to-day demands problem-solving in ways that it 
never demanded before. Our life is so complex that it is impossible for 
us to carry on very long with the mental habits of earlier and simpler 
ages. Science has re-organized our life theoretically and practically. At 
the present time science has been accepted by the public in respect to its 
products rather than in respect to its mental processes. Unless a very 
large number of persons can learn to live through these thought processes, 
we shall have a new sort of class distinction among men. It will be 
necessary then for a large portion of the race to have its thinking done 
for it by the few. In that case, democracy will no longer be possible. 
Everyone who develops the problem-solving habits of thinking, rather 
than habits of routine and rationalization, not only enriches his own life 
but performs a most valuable social service, 





LECTURE X 
The Value of the Fictions We invent about Ourselves 





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THE VALUE OF THE FICTIONS WE 
INVENT ABOUT OURSELVES. 


ERHAPS a very strict exponent of behavior psychology would object 
P to this lecture on the ground that both the subject and the treatment 
of it are too introspective. We must discuss our habits of thinking about 
ourselves. Hence, I suppose, we are dealing with some phases of the 
topic which appears in conventional psychologies as “ self-consciousness.”’ 
In Watson’s book, “ Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist,” 
there is no mention of either self or consciousness. The author believes 
that these words, together with such words as “soul” and “ spirit” indi- 
cate that psychologists are very much confused regarding personality. He 
takes a purely objective view of personality and argues somewhat as fol- 
lows: that personality is the total integration of an individual’s reaction 
tendencies,—that is, it consists of his basic habit formations. 


The behavior psychologists are interested only in the way the indi- 
vidual behaves when his organism as a whole is at work. The individual 
is likened to a gas engine. If all the various mechanical parts are properly 
adjusted the engine will work in a certain way. “ Knowing the part re- 
actions of individuals and how they have functioned as a whole in past 
situations enables us to draw legitimate inferences as to how they will 
act when the new situation confronts them.” Beyond this interest in pre- 
dicting and controlling the behavior of people, Behavior Psychology has 
little concern. 


But if we take the standpoint of psycho-analysis we see that the 
behavior of people is very much determined by what they think about 
themselves. In fact, there is probably nothing more important in all our 
thinking than just that. People are constantly thinking about themselves. 
Perhaps there is nothing about which they think so much. Freud shows 
that in dreaming we are always the heroes of our dreams. As we noticed 
in the lecture on Freud, the dream is verv much disguised, so that unless 
one knows something of the technique of dream analysis, he might not 
easily be convinced that certain dreams are really about himself. This, 
however, seems to be the case, and it is quite evidently shown in such com- 
mon dreams as those in which one is falling or flying, or taking a journey, 
or out in the street only partially clothed. Inasmuch as our dream 
thoughts are expressions of many of the deepest tendencies in our nature, 
this preoccupation with self is significant. 


The same is true with day-dreams. Catch yourself in some moment 
of reverie and note what you are thinking about. It is quite likely you 
will discover that you are thinking about yourself. You are imagining 
yourself in some heroic role, or playing with the idea of yourself as an 
important and successful person, or are in fancy enjoying yourself in 
one way or an other. Many of our reveries are devices for escaping reali- 
ties of life and moulding them nearer to our heart’s desire. The am- 
bitious dreams of youth are all of this nature. The young man with 
political aspirations seldom deliberately calculates the objective good he 
may do in performing the duties of his office. He does not forget himself 


[133] 


e 


134 


in contemplating the needs of his country. He is thinking about his fu- 
ture career. He pictures political campaigns, his photograph being carried 
in a political procession, himself making speeches to large cheering throngs. 
The young lover does not merely lose himself in reverie about his beloved. 
He imagines all sorts of scenes in which he appears heroic to her. Per- 
haps her house will take fire and he will rush in at the risk of his life and 
rescue her while all present applaud the brave deed. Even in our most 
unselfish meditation there is a large element of thinking about ourselves. 
The idealist, dreaming of a better social order in which all men may be 
happier and more kindly, nevertheless finds satisfaction in the thought 
that in some way his own acts may help bring about this better world; 
that is, he conceives of himself as a savior of the world. Notice the ap- 
peals to such fancies about ourselves in the advertisements of those books 
and courses of study which advise gullible persons how, by some magic, 
they may become cultivated, successful individuals with pleasing person- 
alities. In fact, this wish for instantaneous and magical self-transforma- 
tion is so wide-spread that persons who want to make easy money often 
cannot resist the temptation to play upon it. 


Notice also how we love to appear important. We love titles. We 
wish to impress ourselves upon people. On trains you frequently find 
people who make the most serious effort to create a good impression upon 
persons whom they have never seen before and know that they will never 
see again as long as they live. In fact, we strive very hard for the good 
opinion of people whose opinion about every other subject except our- 
selves we may absolutely despise. We cannot bear to see the image of 
ourselves shrink before the eyes of anybody. We love to see our names 
in print. If we know that our name is to be included in “Who’s Who,” 
we probably subscribe to the next issue. Even the most independent and 
unambitious of scholars subscribe to clipping bureaux if they imagine that 
their names may appear in the papers. One of the reasons why there 
is so much advertising to-day is that business men love to see their names 
and the names of the products which they make plastered on bill-boards 
and written in letters of blazing light in the night sky. Even philosophers 
cannot escape this all-too-human tendency. Schopenhauer was furious 
because Hegel was more popular than he. Nietzche, after saying many 
times that the philosopher must be a higher man, aloof and alone, despising 
the judgment of the multitude, was tremendously grateful when Georg 
Brandes, the arbiter of literary fame in Europe, at last gave him recogni- 
tion. Even Emerson, a lofty apostle of the individual soul, still shows 
that that individual soul was sometimes Emerson himself. Note these 
lines in the poem, 


‘6 Goodbye, Proud World, I am Going Home,” 


written after Emerson’s visit to Europe: 


“And when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
“T tread on the power of Greece and Rome; 
“But what are they all in their proud conceit, 
“When man in the bush with God may meet.” 


One reason why people forget names is that they are all the time 
thinking about themselves. Another illustration of the preoccupation with 
self may be seen on any Elevated Railway station. Why do you suppose 


135 


they put looking-glasses on the penny-in-the-slot machines which sell 
chewing gum? The men in the chewing gum business are good psycholo- 
gists. If you want people to look at a thing put a mirror on it. I only wish 
the purchasers of the gum would look at themselves after they have 
begun chewing it. 


Hume raised the problem whether man is ever capable of a disinter- 
ested act. He settled it in the affirmative and I think correctly so, for the 
self that we are so concerned about is not often the self of our gross ma- 
terial interest, but is more frequently the idea which we have. about our- 
self. It is doubtful if anyone can or ever does really accept a low estimate 
of himself or think of himself as a total and absolute failure or inferior. 
Always there is some consoling thought, some compensation or protest. 
It is true that we all have the “inferiority complex,” to some degree, but : 
there are few of us indeed who do not, as a consequence, make much of 
the virtues we do happen to have. I call such virtues “ virtues of extenua- 
tion.” To be sure, there are abnormal persons who may, and sometimes 
do, entertain such a low estimate of themselves. But such persons are 
suffering from a depression and their thought of themselves is a symptom 
of a disease known as melancholia. Julius Caesar, the “ greatest man of 
antiquity,” lost his life because “ Caesar was ambitious.” Even the saints 
who perform the most heroic acts of self-denial are yet not adverse to 
the thought that they are saints, and it is among these religious spirits 
that belief in the immortality of the soul is strongest. We are so inter- 
ested in ourselves that we just cannot imagine the universe continuing to 
exist without us. Hence, the thought of self is an important element in 
human life. 


The self ideal is an object with which we are tremendously pre- 
occupied. I shall treat self as an object, not as a subject. The older 
thinkers were inclined to regard self-consciousness as a stbjective feeling. 
James says that this feeling is purely objective. This may be a new point 
of view to many who have been in the habit of thinking of “ self-con- 
sciousness ”’ in the old subjective way. James says that the self of which 
we are conscious is just as truly an objective thing as are any of the 
things about us which we see and touch, 


What We Mean by Self. 


What, then, do we think about when we think about ourselves? First, 
let us notice that this self cannot be an “original datum,” by which I 
mean that it is not a given subjective or spiritual entity of which we have 
any innate or immediate awareness. We have no a priori intuition of self. 
Kant speaks of the transcendental ego and the empirical ego. By tran- 
scendental ego he means a mysterious principle of personality, the “ pure 
self,” which exists outside of experience. He says we can never know this 
pure self. The self we know is the empirical self, or the self which 1s the 
object of experience. This self belongs to the “phenomenal” world. 
That is, it is conditioned upon human thinking and suffers from the in- 
evitable errors and limitations of such thinking. It does not correspond to 
reality. 


I do not wish to approach the subject in Kant’s way. Let us take a 
genetic view of this problem; that is, let us trace the development of the 
idea itself from infancy on, and we shall see that this idea is not inborn, 


136 


it does not come suddenly; it is a human construction, a hypothesis, if you 
will. There is no evidence that a child opens its eyes on this world and 
thinks: “ Behold me, I am a soul, an ego, a unique spiritual fact.’’ A child 
may become a unique individual or tend to approach it in later years. But 
no invisible soul enters into it with its first breath. It is doubtful whether 
the human infant has any feelings about itself that are different from 
those of other young mammals. Like the others, it is born with various 
reflexes and bodily feelings. But these are not yet integrated into any 
sort of individuality. A little child is occupied with its various specific 
organic responses and it is a long time before even these specific re- 
sponses, except the most elemental ones, are integrated into behavior pat- 
terns in which the whole organism is deliberately and consciously involved. 
It is many months before the child succeeds in discovering its own body 
or recognizes that its various organs belong to the same person. 


The child must first get an image of its physical organism as a whole, 
and it is doubtful if we ever quite succeed in doing this even in adult life. 
We haven’t a very clear idea just what we look like. People who have 
once been slender and suddenly grow stout often continue to think of them- 
selves as sylph-like. Also, it is difficult for us to take in the fact that 
we are beginning to look old. We are surprised, often a little disillusioned, 
when first we find that young people take it for granted that we are mem- 
bers of the older generation. 


Again, to have a sense of self, the child must develop a feeling of 
the continuity of its stream of experiences. I mean, it must be able to 
refer its past experiences to its own past. Here, too, success is never 
absolute as it would be if self were a given object complete from the 
beginning. There are certain incidents which happened in my childhood 
and to this very day I am not sure whether they happened to myself or to 
my brother. I am sure many other persons have such confused memories. 
There is an enormous amount of repression going on in the first years of 
childhood and this repression is a kind of forgetting. Psychopathologists 
have only recently come to understand how much we have each forgotten of 
those early years. It is possible through the technique of psycho-analysis 
to restore many of these memories. Surely then we should expect to find 
that the sense of self in these early memories is slow-developing and often 
vague. 


Again, the child who has a full sense of self must be able to place him- 
self correctly as a member of the family, of the community, and so on. 
He must acquire the habit of responding in a certain way to his name, 
and to use correctly the personal pronouns. I am sure that very much of 
our sense of self depends upon this. Little children very frequently speak 
of themselves in the third person, even after they learn to talk fairly well. 
Consequently, before an idea of the self can be entertained, a child must 
have developed language habits. The idea of the self, therefore, is 
learned. It is a habit, and is acquired in much the same way that other 
habits are acquired. 


Similarly, if the idea of self is learned, it is not the object of instinc- 
tive knowledge. We hear a great deal about the ego-instincts in 
psychology to-day. The Freudians particularly seem enamored of this 
concept. One may speak of such an instinct only if he wishes to include in 
his concept of instinct in general the element of knowledge or of feeling. 


13/7 


Thus it is sometimes held that this ego-instinct is a sort of three dimen- 
sional affair, having its cognitive side which is instinctive self-knowledge, 
its affective side, which, according to McDougall, consists of two opposite 
feelings, the positive self feeling he calls “self-appreciation’’ and the 
negative self-feeling he calls “ self-depreciation.” Finally, there is the 
conative side of this instinct which consists of the acts which one is in- 
stinctively impelled to do in the interests of his ego. 


Freudians correctly diagnose many forms of abnormal mentality as 
symptoms of a disturbance of the ego. I do not, however, believe that 
such diagnoses necessarily or correctly demand that we should assume the 
existence of an ego-instinct. It is only necessary to say that such ab- 
normal phenomena are the result of wrong thinking about ourselves. 
What I said about instinct in the lecture on that subject applies to the 
so-called “ ego-instinct.” Let us again follow Watson, who has dealt with 
the subject of instinct in a manner free from the confusion which char- 
acterizes the usual treatment of the subject, and let us remember that by the 
term instinct we mean “an inherited mode of response of the pattern re- 
action type.” This view of the ego-instinct necessarily excludes habit and 
learning ; in other words, the element of knowledge of self. 


Whatever self-interest may be, then, we probably have no right to 
assume the existence of an “ ego-instinct.”” When we look for the pat- 
terns which are concerned with the self or ego, we see that there are 
none directly concerned with the ego as such. The patterns wherever 
found will be those of mere instinctive behavior toward certain outside 
objects. Let us note the so-called instinct of self preservation. As James 
showed, this is a pure abstraction. We cannot conceive of animals as 
motivated in their acts by such general ends as these. An instinct is al- 
ways a specific response toward some definite object. When an organism 
runs away from a dangerous object we may say his action is instinctive 
flight; when he seeks food, we may say that his action is characterized by 
instinctive hunger. Now it happens that these instincts and many others 
have survival value. The instinct of flight, for instance, may preserve the 
life of the organism. So will the instinct to fight, on certain occasions. 
Let us characterize these instinctive acts for what they are. Why say that 
they are also the instincts of self-preservation? Psychologists who say 
this would seem to be merely abstracting the element of survival from 
various instinctive actions and making out of this abstract element a 
separate instinct. 


Self Feeling is Objective. 


Self-knowledge, therefore, if it is knowledge, is neither instinctive 
nor intuitive. No unique datum is given in either of these ways. What 
then do we think when we think about ourselves? Do we think about 
anything at all? Is the object of our thought merely illusion? I do not 
think so. It contains many elements and is probably more in the nature 
of an inference than of an immediate awareness of any one object. 
James says, “ Certain things, objects, appeal to our instinctive primitive 
impulses. These objects our consciousness treats as the primordial con- 
stituents of its me. . . . Whatever other objects, whether by as- 
sociation with the fate of these, or in any other way, come to be followed 
with the same sort of interest form our remoter and more secondary self. 


138 


The words “ me,” then, and “ self,” so far as they arouse feeling and con- 
note emotional worth, are objective designations, meaning all the things 
which have power to produce in a stream of consciousness excitement of 
a certain peculiar sort.” 


“We see no reason to suppose that self-love is primarily or second- 
arily or ever love for one’s mere principle of conscious identity. 
Its own body, then, first of all, its friends next, and finally, its spiritual 
dispositions must be the supremely interesting objects for each human 
mind. . . . If the zoological and evolutionary “view is the true one, there 
is no reason why any object whatever might not arouse passion and in- 
terest as primitively and instinctively as any other. . . . I might 
conceivably be as much fascinated and as primitively so by the care of my 
neighbor’s body as by the care of my own. The only check to such ex- 
uberant altruistic interests is natural selection which would weed out such 
as would be very harmful to the individual or to his tribe. Many inter- 
ests, however, remain unweeded out—the interest in the opposite sex, for 
example, which seems in mankind stronger than is called for by its utili- 
tarian need—and along side of them remain interests like that in alcoholic 
intoxication or in musical sounds which for aught we can see are without 
any utility whatever.” 


“An original central self-feeling can never explain the passionate 
warmth of our self regarding emotions which must, on the contrary, be 
addressed to special things, less abstract and empty of content. To these 
things the name of self may be given, or to our conduct toward them the 
name of selfishness, but neither in the self nor in selfishness does the pure 
thinker play the title role.” 


James further says that the sense of personal identity is the sense of 
sameness perceived by thought and predicted by things thought about. 
It is exactly like anyone of our other perceptions of sameness among 
phenomena. When we say, then, “I am the same as I was yesterday,” 
we say so because there is a certain similarity in the two selves thought of 
which leads us to identify them logically. There is nothing different in 
this from my saying that my table is the same as it was yesterday, except 
that in the case of my personal identity the element of sameness is known t9 
me in the form of a certain bodily feeling, but this bodily feeling is just 
as objective as my sensation of any other object. James in treating of 
the empirical self says that in thinking of it we really are thinking about 
certain objects toward which we feel in a certain way. We have a peculiar 
interest in them, so that when they succeed we feel happy and important, 
and when they fail we feel that something has vanished from our inmost 
life. These are objects which can never be regarded as mere means. 
They seem to be ends in themselvs and they are objects which we do not 
share, and hence the contemplation of them gives us a sense of indi- 
viduation. In this way, objects which in themselves would never be as- 
sociated at all perhaps come to be stamped with this peculiar emotional 
interest we have in them and to take on the character of a personal iden- 
tity. James, in dealing with the subject of self, shows that we have 
really many selves, the “ material me,” the “social me,” and the “ spirit- 
ual me.” 


139 


James says that the body is the inmost part of the material self in 
each of us. He further adds that we identify ourselves with some parts 
of the body more than with others. Yet it cannot be denied that we 
think of our whole organic existence as ourselves. The pride and sense 
of self-esteem which many people show in their physical appearance is 
well known. Something of this we all have. Much of our egoism can be 
traced back by psycho-analysts to forgotten exhibitionist tendencies of 
infancy. There are certain bodily defects concerning which almost 
anyone would feel a sense of shame, a shrinking of the self. And with 
bodily importance go also our clothes. Many a person poorly clad feels a 
sense of inferiority. And the reverse of this is true also. Many people 
find in extravagant dress a protest against the feeling of inferiority. This 
identification of ourself with our clothes leads to a very common form of 
speech. Let one put on a new article of clothing and the first person 
met will be asked: “ How do I look?” 


There are religious sects who seek to minimize this “ bodily me,” 
who fight against it and humiliate it as if it were the enemy of the other 
“mes.” Such religious practices are known as “asceticism.” Speaking 
from the standpoint of psychology, asceticism may be analyzed into some- 
thing more serious than mere hostility to the body. It contains an element 
of hostility toward life itself, and is closely allied with those neurotic 
symptoms which psychologists designate as diseases of the ego due to a 
withdrawal of vital interests from certain objects because the subject is 
unable to react to them with emotional adequacy. Thus it is apparent that 
the bodily self is deeply involved in the whole behavior of the ego. 


James says that along with the body the “material me” includes 
also our possessions. There is no clear cut distinction between “me” and 
“mine.” Popular speech gives evidence of this fact in the common saying 
that a man is “ worth” so and so, when it is meant that he possesses a 
certain amount of property. Let the average person suddenly come into 
the possession of wealth and the enlargement of his ego is easily notice- 
able. In fact, this is one of the most common devices for seeking self- 
importance among mediocre people and accounts for that over-stimula- 
tion of men’s ambitions for material success so characteristic of demo- 
cratic civilization. 


The social self or “me” is the recognition one gets from his fellow 
beings; in other words, it is the reflection of our image in the attitude of 
other people to us. We are deeply concerned about what people think of 
us and are likely to assume the behavior patterns and accept uncritically 
the opinion of persons who make up the group to which we belong. As 
James says, our good or evil opinion of ourself depends largely upon this 
social recognition. We love to be im things. Even Caesar loved flattery. 
“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing 
physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and 
remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof.” We always 
feel inferior if people cut us dead. 


James further says that, properly speaking, men have as many social 
selves as there are individuals who recognize them. But, inasmuch as 
one’s contacts with individuals take place in certain group associations, we 
may say that one has as many social selves as there are groups to which 


140 


he belongs, and we may further say that his self-appreciation is not a uni- 
form thing but varies according to the standard of honor that obtains in 
this or that group. Thus, the non-combatant feels no sense of dishonor in 
fleeing as a refugee before an invading enemy, but the soldier’s honor 
demands a different type of behavior. Much of the inconsistency in hu- 
man behavior grows out of the different social selves which are competing 
in us for mastery. The traditional deacon who is pious on Sunday and 
cheats his neighbors on week days is not necessarily a hypocrite, but a 
victim of conflicting social selves. He is not very different from the 
small boy who is very demure and obedient at home under the watchful 
parental eye, but who, when out among his school-boy associates, will 
swear and swagger and smoke cigarettes. Honor in the boy-world may 
demand that sort of behavior, but not so honor at home. For this rea- 
son it is doubtful if the behavior of anyone is consistent. The point, 
however, is that we get our sense of self very largely from the people 
with whom we associate. 


The “ spiritual self ” is simply, as James says, our thought of ourself 
as thinkers; in other words, it is that sense of self that comes from con- 
templating our own mental processes. The feeling we have here, like all 
emotion, as James says, is bodily feeling and is, therefore, objective in 
the same way that the feeling about our other selves is objective. 


Out of these various elements which go to make up our thought of 
ourselves some order or integration must be achieved. First we arrange 
the selves into some scheme of relative importance. Some things in us will 
give us a keener sense of importance or inferiority than other things. 
This James calis the “ jierarchy of the mes” and he says that we achieve 
it very largely by means of a process of selection. Choose a self and 
stand by it, he says. “A tolerably unanimous opinion ranges the different 
selves of which a man may be ‘seized’ and ‘possessed’ and the con- 
sequent different orders of his self-regard in a hierarchical scale with the 
bodily me at the bottom, the spiritual me at the top, and the extra cor- 
poreal material self and the various social selves between.” Of course, in 
all this there is rivalry and conflict. “ Not that I would not, if I could 
be both handsome and fat and well-dressed and a great athlete and make 
a million a year; be a wit, bon vivant, and a lady killer, as well as a 
philosopher, philanthropist and statesman, warrior, an African explorer, 
as well as a tone poet and saint. But the thing is impossible. The 
millionaire’s work would run counter to the saint’s; the bon vivant and 
the philanthropist would trip each other up; and the philosopher and lady- 
killer could not keep house in the same tenement of clay.” At the outset 
perhaps various of these rival selves might be possible to us, but as 
we mature and develop certain habits these possibilities are closed and we 
settle down to a relatively harmonious group of selves with one of them 
predominant, and on this we stake our salvation, reckoning it no shame 
to fail in any of those not adopted as specifically our own, 


The Construction of the “ Personality Picture.” 


From a somewhat different point of view I wish to discuss this 
gradual adoption of a self as our own. I should say that a self which 
we habitually appropriate is in a way not so much adopted as created by 
us. It is a character sketch which we spend our lives in drawing. The 


141 


term which I prefer to use is personality picture. In a sense, we ate each 
an artist, spending his life painting an imaginary portrait of himself. We 
are, by our deeds and choices, really writing our autobiography and this 
autobiography, like all others, is a work of fiction. It is a necessary fic- 
tion, however, and the success or failure of our life depends on how good 
an imaginary portrait we paint; in other words, how well we succeed in 
making our life a work of art. 


We begin in a fumbling way, as children begin to learn to draw. 
Slowly and with much effort and erasing, with many a wrong stroke, we 
acquire greater skill and the details of the features gradually appear with 
ever greater and greater distinctness. At first we do not know just what 
the picture is which we are to spend our life in painting. The very plan 
and form of this picture is created as we go along, until we reach the 
place finally where we see what it is we are painting, and then it is gener- 
ally too late to impose upon it another character and we are left with 
the task of perfecting the one we have started. 


Dr. Alfred Adler, the Viennese psychologist, uses the terms “ imagin- 
ary goals’ and “fictitious guiding lines.” He says that such an imaginary 
goal is created, begining with early childhood, as a protest against the feel- 
ing of inferiority. A child, for any reason whatsoever—its weakness, 
smallness, bodily defect, real or imagined backwardness, may feel himself 
to be inferior and so he begins to protest against the self-depreciative feel- 
ing which accompanies all such thoughts. He forms a habit of comparing 
himself with other persons, of testing his powers. In imagination he 
identifies himself with those he admires. He entertains an ideal of the 
man he would like to be and imagines himself to be that sort of person 
in anticipation of his attainment of the ideal. 


Brill has shown that everyone has what-he calls an “ emphatic index.” 
By this he means that it is possible for a psychologist to discover who the 
person is with whom each of us unconsciously identifies himself. Many 
identify themselves with Napoleon. Others, with Lincoln or George 
Washington, or Theodore Roosevelt. One may often notice the Na- 
poleonic frown on the brow of a business man which is his way of telling 
the world that he considers himself a “ Napoleon of finance.” One fre- 
quently sees men who make an effort to smile and show their teeth like 
Yheodore Roosevelt. Now these forms of identification are not confined 
to superficial gestures. They determine the guiding line which one fol- 
lows through life. Sometimes the identification is with the parent images 
and in such cases there frequently happen the unfortunate results which we 
saw in the lecture on Freud. 


Adler says that when we make our choices we do not accept or 
reject things because of their intrinsic worth, but because we have referred 
them to our personality picture. If they seem to be the sort of things 
that the individual we have created in this picture would do, we say yes 
to them; if not, we reject them, and, if this is impossible, we repress them; 
that is, we ignore their existence, whether they exist as tendencies in our- 
selves or as facts in our environment. This is the function of the per- 
sonality picture. It is an instrument of orientation, by which I mean 
that its function is to give us a basis for locating ourselves among the pos- 
‘bilities of experience so that our course of life takes a certain direction. 


142 


And this is supremely important for us, for otherwise our existence would 
be a complete chaos. 


So imporant is this function of the personality picture that we may 
well say that it is the most important thing about us. The reason why 
men guard it so carefully and are so upset if anything defaces it, is pre- 
cisely because it is a vital instrument of choosing. When it functions 
properly, we know what we want. We can sustain a purpose, achieve a 
career, become a personality. Thus the personality picture is our “ char- 
acter,” our empirical “soul.” The deepest truths of religion have some- 
thing to do with our attempts to preserve this personality picture. The 
sense that we have not painted the picture which we believe we ought 
to have painted is called the feeling of sin. The desire to preserve the 
picture, to see it beautiful and clearly drawn, is the longing for the 
“salvation of the soul.” The reason men resent insult and cannot bear 
the feeling of inferiority is because these things tend to mar and disfigure 
this picture which they so carefully guard. 


When I say the picture is fiction, I do not mean that it is all fiction. 
Of course, it is founded on fact, but nevertheless it contains, just as in 
the act of choosing a career, much that is anticipated, much that is pure 
desire, much self-idealization. One important difference among men is 
the manner in which they strive to preserve their personality picture in- 
tact. Adler says that the neurotic individual invents an imaginary goal 
for himself which it is beyond his power to achieve. This goal, however, 
gives him consolation. He strives in everyway to secure himself in it. 
lt becomes an imaginary refuge from the real. He invents all sorts of 
devices to preserve it from the realities which would challenge it. Finally, 
he builds for it a castle in Spain within whose impenetrable walls of 
fancy he lives with it in seclusion, sequestered from the contemplation of 
any reality which would cause him to face the facts about himself. 


Such persons are psychopathic. Their one aim in life is to defend 
their ego-fiction. They preserve their personality picture static, unmodi- 
fied by experience. They fail to live genuinely because in all things they 
are merely seeking to save their spiritual faces. Their picture ceases to be 
an instrument of orientation. It draws them away from the tasks of life 
toward an asylum in which the picture is an end in itself. Healthy- 
minded people are able to revise their personality pictures in the light of 
experience. They seek to preserve them, not by keeping them static, but in 
activity. They are capable of self-criticism. They learn to think not merely 
for the sake of thinking away that which conflicts with their ideal of them- 
selves. They think in order to solve problems, and the courageous facing 
of any fact or the solution of any problem leaves its imprint upon the self- 
ideal so as to develop and strengthen it. 


The Emotions Associated with the Self-Ideal. 


Dr. Bernard Glueck gives us a list of four types of emotions which 
are associated with the desire to keep up the ego-ideal. First, there is 
the desire for new experience. I should call this the desire for adven- 
ture. We hate humdrum and monotony and grow tired of ourselves when 
such is our lot. We feel ourselves to be mediocre, when caught in a dull 
routine. There is a sort of self-expansiveness in the sense of adventure. 


143 


This is why men pursue game, love to travel, read stories of romance and 
make of the pursuit of knowledge an adventure. Much depends upon the 
sort of things one forms the habit of making his adventure, and here the 
personality picture comes to be the deciding factor. When life ceases to 
be an adventure there is a distinct psychic loss,—a listlessness, inattentive- 
ness, a withdrawal of interest which psycho-pathologists describe as “an 
introversion of the libido.” The vital interest turns from objects to which 
the individual can no longer react with emotional satisfaction, and is di- 
rected inward toward the ego ideal itself. In such cases, there 1s com- 
monly a serious disturbance of the whole personality. 


The second emotion which Dr. Glueck points out is the desire for 
security. Not mere physical or economic security, but the security of the 
ego-ideal. We have already dealt with this point, but I should like to add a 
word about the social significance of this desire. Much depends upon 
the way in which this security is sought in society, whether by a dull 
conformity to convention, or by training people in habits of self-mastery, 
which is, after all, mastery over something in the environment. It is 
coming to be the fashion to try to secure character by removing tempta- 
tion. If a motion picture theatre suggests to the neurotic individual an 
erotic impulse or the idea of committing a crime, we must have a solemn 
censorship over all such public entertainments. If a work of fiction or 
even a literary classic disturbs a moron we have a “clean books bill.” If 
a neurotic cannot pass a saloon without going in and becoming intoxicated, 
cultivated people may no longer serve wine at their dinner tables. From 
the standpoint of social psychology this is a wrong-headed method of 
procedure. It simply forces upon all people the moral dilemmas of the 
most inferior. A community, like an individual, is known by the dilemmas 
it keeps. The removal of temptations does not develop character. It 
simply represents the survival values of lower types of men. 


A third desire associated with the ego is the desire for recognition. 
Under this head, are listed various devices for achieving distinction in the 
eyes of the public or attracting attention to ourselves—ambition, ar- 
rogance, vanity, and so on. Perhaps envy should be listed under this 
head also, inasmuch as it is frequently the vanity of the unsuccessful. 
When this desire for recognition consists merely in such things as “ fish- 
ing ’’ for compliments, love of praise, it is not very serious. When it com- 
pels persons to strive for real distinction of worth, it is, of course, a 
wholesome and natural thing. It is very likely that a society, when it 
loses its sense of distinction among men, will lose the very basis of its 
cultural value. The desire becomes psychopathic when it leads to the 
delusion of grandeur or the delusion of “reference.” The former delu- 
sion needs no explanation. There are individuals ranging all the way from 
normal persons to paranoiacs who are the victims of such delusions. 
Conceited persons of this type are common and their conceit is very com- 
monly a self-defense against a feeling of inferiority. The delusion of 
reference is a term used by psychologists to describe the behavior of per- 
sons who think that everything said and done by the persons in their 
environment has some special reference to themselves. A common form 
of this delusion exists in most of us. If we hear a number of persons 
near us laughing, it is often not easy to dispel the idea that they may be 
laughing at us, even when there is no evidence that this is so. 


144 


Finally there is the desire for response. This is not quite the same as 
the desire for recognition. It is the wish for something more intimate. 
How many people there are who feel that they are “not understood.” 
We wish somebody to understand us, to love us. Romantic love, domestic- 
ity, friendship, are all features of this desire. And its negative reaction 
types are home sickness and loneliness. There is an abnormal form of 
this desire which sometimes occurs when the individual finds himself not 
at home in the environment of mature life and returns in imagination and 
fixes his emotional interest upon the parent image. Persons suffering from 
this infantile return are frequently unable to give themselves with any 
genuine emotion or affection to the love of anyone, however much they 
may desire to do so. Perhaps in such cases the desire for response is 
too strong, so that the individual never wholly detaches himself from the 
memory of the time when his ego found satisfaction in the fact that he was 
the most important person in the world to his father and mother. 


In all these things and in many others, the drama of life centers about 
the fictions which we invent about ourselves. Many social movements, 
political ideals, religious practices, reforms, utopian dreams, have the 
function primarily of defending the ego against the inferiority complex. 
Enormous groups of men, finding their ego fictions similarly challenged, 
form crowds of one sort or another, comprising sometimes whole classes 
and nations. I have shown in another connection that much of the think- 
ing of crowds, their dogmas and propagandas and panaceas, does not solve, 
environmental problems, but is a collective face-saving device. 
We should learn to recognize these protests in ourselves and in 
others. They are not always easily recognizable for what they are 
because they assume such pompous forms of disguise. The trained 
mind, however, will learn to pierce through these disguises, recognize the 
ego-interests for what they are, face the facts about himself, and strive 
to form such habits of thinking as will keep his ego interest normal. After 
all, one thing is certain: no civilization or social order can easily survive 
which offends the ego-feeling of too large a portion of the population. 
Men will always resent exploitation and tyranny and coercion because it 
gives them an inferiority complex to be “bossed” about. “ That gov- 
ernment is best which governs least.” This statement is still psychologically 
true. There should be the very greatest caution in resorting to coercion 
even for the sake of the most moral ends. The moral ends proposed may 
turn out to be mere justifications for somebody’s wish to lord it over 
his neighbors and to be important. We place too much emphasis upon 
ae control these days. Normal self-hood can exist only where there is 

reeaom, 


LECTURE XI 
‘The Unconscious and its Influence upon Human Behavior. 


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THE UNCONSCIOUS AND ITS INFLUENCE 
ON HUMAN BEHAVIOR. 


F WHAT I said in the previous lecture about the self is correct, there 
is more in our nature than we ever succeed in organizing into a con- 
scious self. As we have seen, the “personality picture” is really a selec- 
tion. It is a form of self-idealization. It necessarily leaves out 
many things which, while they are incompatible with it, are never- 
theless parts of our being. We saw how important this mat- 
ter of selection is. As James said, when we are very young we may 
become one of any number of possible selves. As we grow older we 
“choose a self and stand by it.” I do not mean that we consciously 
and all at once decide that we are to be a “saint” or a “ philanthropist ” 
or an “African explorer’? or a “ lady-killer.’ As I said in the earlier 
lecture, the formation of our personality picture or imaginary goal is a 
gradual process, beginning with a very vague and dimly outlined dominant 
tendency. As the personality picture becomes constructed it acts to check 
tendencies in our nature which are hostile to it. Many of these tendencies 
are such that they are really unacceptable to consciousness. Therefore, 
ee are put out of mind. We finally cease to attend them, and “ repress ”’ 
them. 


This fact of selection, as James says, is essential to the psychic life. 
Our sense organs are such that we respond to only a very small number 
of all the movements of matter which might stimulate us. There may 
be countless forms of vibrations about us like the wave-lengths which 
carry radio messages. We have no way of reacting directly to such 
vibrations, but it is conceivable that living beings might exist which would 
respond to various electrical wave lengths with as definite sensations as 
we have in responding to light waves. Even of the few kinds of stimuli 
to which we do respond, we select a very narrow range. Sound waves 
and light waves other than this small number—those, for instance, that 
are longer or shorter than the waves in the solar spectrum—we cannot see. 
Of the sensations which we do have, we pay attention to only a small por- 
tion. While one is listening to a lecture there are many stimuli playing 
upon him, to which he does not respond consciously. Some responses, of 
course, must be made, but the clock may be ticking, there may be various 
other noises in the room, or out on the street; there are various stimuli con- 
nected with the lights in the room, there is the pressure of one’s clothes on 
the body, together with various muscle sensations due to remaining in 
a sitting posture for many minutes, and there are the movements of people 
about us. All of which may pass unnoticed if one is paying attention 
to what is being said. 


Of the things to which we pay attention, again, only a very small 
portion remains as part of our conscious existence. We forget much, we 
ignore much; in fact, our thinking is possible only because we are partial 
to objects. Finally there is our guiding line in life which is itself an instru- 
ment of choosing, determining that we shall be interested in some lines 
of behavior rather than in others. Such a highly specialized consciousness 
as that of humanity is possible only at the cost of great “slaughter” of 


[147] 


148 


possible experience. Our consciousness is like a spot-light that follows 
a moving character upon a stage, bringing him into full view, yet, as it 
moves here and there with him, flashing upon other forms hidden in the 
shadow. ‘These other forms do not cease to exist merely because they 
are not the star-performer. There are all sorts of potential selves, for- 
gotten childhood experiences, wishes and fancies and impulses, which haunt 
us even in our most deliberately thoughtful moments. Many become the 
playmates of our idle hours. Some of them we can never bring to the 
light of knowledge. We feel their effects but do not know what they 
are. They are like children playing pranks upon us, knocking on our 
door on Halloween and scampering away before we can open it and 
see them. 


Often you are reminded of something. To save your life you can- 
not tell what it is. Again, it is as if you were trying to remember a name 
which you have forgotten. Though you know perfectly well that the name 
is not Smith or Jones, yet you cannot speak it. How is it that you cannot 
do this, and that when the name is recalled to you, you can recognize it? 
In other words, how can something which you do not know, enable you 
to know that another thing is not that? Obviously, while you are not 
thinking it, it still must have some influence upon you. So with many 
other things which we do not think of. There are many indications that 
the unorganized psychic material produces effects in our behavior. It plays 
many little tricks on us. We shall see later that it is the cause of many 
of the errors we make. It conditions our temperament. It determines 
largely our likes and dislikes; causes all sorts of obsessions to haunt our 
minds; is the source of many forms of elation and depression, and 
inspires many of the fictions which constitute our reveries. Even the 
very useful fiction about ourselves is to no small extent unconsciously 
determined. 


Before Freud’s day such facts were studied. Psychologists were 
interested in what they called the “ sub-conscious’”’ or the “ co-conscious.” 
Facts of hypnotism and of multiple personality were known and discussed. 
The older psycho-therapeutics made much of the so-called “ sub-conscious,” 
as did also the cult known as New Thought. Much of the thinking about 
the sub-conscious was mystical and pseudo-scientific. Many people made 
a sort of pantheistic god of it. They seemed to believe that it was the 
same in all persons, and that most of the miseries of human life were 
due to the fact that we had somehow got out of tune with this “ Infinite.” 
in other words, people tried to make of the sub-conscious a secret back- 
stairs upon which they imagined they could sneak up into the presence of 
supe.-mundane reality. 

ah te) NS cei SOR RE 


In the lecture on Freud we saw that scientists now are beginning 
to take a less mystical view of this phenomenon. We have already dis- 
cussed certain phases of the unconscious and have seen how Freud and his 
followers are making it necessary that psychologists abandon their old 
narrower intellectualism and take a larger view of human nature. Freud’s 
use of the term “unconscious” has brought him much criticism. It is 
said that the unconscious is an unproved hypothesis and a gratuitious 
assumption; that it is mystical and self-contradictory. How, it is asked, 
can ideas, feelings and memories exist in the unconscious? Is it not 


149 


necessary that these things be conscious in order to exist at all? It is not 
our purpose to enter upon a discussion of these criticisms. Perhaps Freud 
does not really mean that there are unconscious ideas and feelings. There 
has been a great deal of misunderstanding about this term. 


Even if it could be shown that Freud considers the unconscious to 
be a thing, a separate department, I am not sure that it is necessary for 
us so to regard it. In his book, “ The Interpretation of Dreams” Freud 
does suggest, I think, a rather unfortunate diagram. The mind is pictured 
as if consciousness were a small porch or vestibule, opening into a sort of 
large hall which is called the fore-conscious; back of this is a great dark 
building, composing most of the psyche. This Freud calls the unconscious. 
However, I suspect that such a view is really only intended to be a 
figure of speech. 


Freud is certainly on more solid ground when he argues that the 
unconscious is merely an hypothesis, constructed in order to explain cer- 
tain facts of behavior, facts which, Freud contends, cannot be explained 
on any other theory. In his book, “General Introduction to Psycho- 
Analysis,’ he says that certain patients behave in the same manner as a 
hypnotized person behaves, to whom an injunction has been given that 
five minutes after awakening he is to open an umbrella. When he obeys 
this order, what shall we say about his motive? He is acting upon an 
impulse which he does not take cognizance of. He is not aware that he 
has been told to open the umbrella. Now a trauma, that is, a shock, or a 
fixation, may cause one to behave in the same way. A painful experience 
which causes a person to suffer intense conflict—for instance, an impulse 
or wish which he entertains but refuses to admit because, let us say, it 
is in conflict with his moral principles—may, together with the incidents 
originally associated with it, still produce effects in his behavior though 
he has entirely forgotten it. 


One of Freud’s early patients, a hysterical woman, came to him 
suffering from hysterical lameness. She had no idea what had 
caused her to have her symptoms. After a long and difficult 
analysis she recalled a number of incidents, among them the occasion 
on which she learned that her sister was dead. Her sister had been 
married to a man for whom this patient had a regard which she had 
never admitted to herself. When the news of her sister’s death came, 
the thought flashed through this woman’s mind, “now he is free and 
can marry me.” But this was a disloyal thought, and to the patient it 
was so horrible that, even when she recalled it in the process of analysis, 
she experienced violent emotion. However, we are told that her symptoms 
disappeared. JI am not reporting this case because of any interest in 
psycho-analysis as a form of cure, but simply to illustrate the point that 
here was a person who was enduring certain bodily states because of 
a preoccupation with or defense against something which she had entirely 
forgotten. What else should we say but that the repressed wish was in 
this case an unconscious one? As Freud says, it is as if certain persons 
do not get through a painful situation because they are unable to meet an 
overpowering emotional occasion. They are still pre-occupied with the 
event, though unconsciously so. This fixation and pre-occupation with 
an emotional situation may be either conscious or unconscious. The mourne 


150 


ing after the death of a loved-one is a conscious form of such pre-occupa- 
tion, or fixation. For a long period there may be a lack of interest in 
other things. The mind is caught and held by the painful thought and 
the behavior of the person suffering grief is conditioned by that thought. 


Now people may behave in much the same way even when their 
pre-occupation is not conscious. ‘There are persons who suffer depression 
quite as painful as that of a bereaved relative, who yet can give no 
intelligible account of the causes of such behavior. Freud calls attention 
in his book, “ Totem and Taboo,” to a neurotic form of grief. Often 
one who has nursed a relative through a long and exacting period of 
illness will, after the death of the sufferer, begin to accuse himself of 
neglect, feel that he has not done all that he could do. In such cases, 
Freud found that the real cause of such self-accusation is often the 
result of a wish, during the illness, that the patient might die. Such a 
wish, of course, cannot be entertained, being in conflict with the devotion 
to the sick person. It is, therefore, repressed and, though unconscious, 
still determines behavior. 


Rivers shows that the war neurosis, commonly known as “ shell- 
shock,” frequently grew out of unadmitted fear. He says that his 
“ shell-shocked ’”’ patients were commonly men who repressed their fear 
into the unconscious, and that men who admitted that they were afraid 
did not develop the war neurosis. Now in this use of the word uncon- 
scious it is not meant that the patient is absolutely unconscious. Of course, 
he is conscious of his symptoms and his modified behavior. What he 
is not conscious of is the cause of his symptoms. 


The Unconscious in Behaviorist Terms. 


Perhaps some of the difficulties regarding the unconscious may be 
solved if we try to express the facts of the case in ordinary psychological 
language. In the lecture on Habit, I said a good deal about the conditioned 
reflex. Unconscious impulses may be regarded as habits or as conditioned 
reflexes. In an earlier lecture, it will be remembered, I gave as an illustra- 
tion of the unconscious the example of the person coming to Cooper Union 
on the subway. I said that he decides to get off the train at Astor 
Place, then may occupy his thoughts with something else, may read a paper 
or talk, and during the time he is journeying to the lecture hall, he may 
not once think of the lecture or of getting out of the train at any particular 
station. When the guard calls out the station, Astor Place, I said, the 
passenger automatically gets up and leaves the car. He does not need 
to think all the time he is traveling that he must get out at Astor Place; 
he simply associates the name of the station with his impulse to leave 
the train, and then goes on thinking about something else. The asso- 
ciated impulse does not exist as an idea in his unconscious. It is simply 
a delayed response to stimulus. What he has done is merely to condition 
a reflex. He has conditioned the impulse to leave the train upon a future 
stimulus. Now there are many of our impulses which are conditioned 
upon future stimuli. They are delayed responses because we cannot act 
upon them. When we repress them—that is, put them into the unconscious 
—we simply are stimulated to act, but instead of acting, we withhold the 
response. Response is hence delayed. It becomes conditioned so that 
it will have a tendency to take place when stimuli are met which we do 


151 


not consciously recognize as stimuli. The response itself may again 
become conditioned; that is, instead of our acting in a way in which we 
naturally would when we are stimulated, the impulse may be drained off 
into another reflex which is a substitute for the original response. There 
is no reason why this process should be accompanied by consciousness. 


It will be remembered that when we were discussing the conditioned 
reflex we used Pawlov’s experiment on the dog. When a hungry dog 
is shown meat and secretes saliva, we may call the sight of the meat 
stimulus I, and the secretion of the saliva, response I. Now, when after 
ringing the bell each time the meat is shown him, the dog becomes so 
conditioned that he secretes saliva whenever he hears the bell without 
seeing the meat, we have merely put two reflexes together, as it were. 
We may speak of the sound of the bell as stimulus II and the response 
which the dog would naturally make to the bell as response II. The 
conditioned reflex means that in each of these reflexes, I and II, the 
stimulus and response are cut apart, so that response I is now connected 
with stimulus II. What becomes of response II, or the tendency to make 
such a response? Surely there still must be some slight impulse to give 
response II, even when stimulus II is made to be associated with response 
I. This tag-end of the reflex arc is still there in the nervous organization. 
Of course, it is now cut away from the general system of organized be- 
havior patterns of the individual. There must be an enormous number 
of such tag-ends of conditioned reflexes in human beings. 


These number II responses, we may say, do not ordinarily attain 
consciousness because they are not connected in the general scheme of 
our life’s organization. They may be implicitly active in all sorts of 
ways. They may be stimulated by all sorts of things which we do not 
notice. When they are, we have an unconscious impulse to act. This 
impulse is not at all the same as a stored-up idea or feeling. It is purely 
organic. Let us take a hypothetical case of a patient whose behavior 
is pathological because of certain unconscious motives. We make use of 
illustrations from abnormal psychology, not because we are interested in 
the morbid or because the unconscious is confined to psychopathic persons, 
but because such cases throw light upon behavior of normal persons. 


A man has been very faithful to his work, intensely interested in it 
and is beginning to receive some recognition in his profession. One day 
he suddenly leaves his office. Two days later he returns and cannot remem- 
ber anything that has happened in the meantime. The morning of his 
return he found himself, let us say, in Brooklyn. He is very much 
disturbed and rightly believes that there must be something wrong with 
him, though he does not know what it is. This inability to remember is 
called by psychopathologists amnesia. His behavior on the two or three 
days out of the office seems to be cut off from the ordinary stream of 
conduct by “memory gaps.” During the time the man has been away, 
we may say that he was suffering from a very acute attack of absent- 
mindedness, Yet it is quite likely that casual observers who saw him 
during this period would not think there was anything unusual about him. 
It is also likely that if he were hypnotized after his return, he would, 
it, the hypnotic stage, be able to recall what he did during those two 


152 


days. He consults a physician who merely tells him that he has been 
very much worried about his work, that he has been working too hard, 
and that he must take a rest. 


After a month’s vacation, he feels much improved. Shortly after 
this he is promoted to a responsible position, but instead of feeling elated 
he becomes greatly disturbed. He acts queerly. He doubts his ability 
to meet the new responsibilities which have been placed upon him. He 
becomes so pre-occupied with his work that his wife feels that he is 
neglecting her. As he lives in a suburb near the city, he finds it necessary 
often to remain in town until very late in order to give more time to 
his tasks. Later, he rents a cheap room in the city and it is some time 
before his wife is able to locate him. Finally, he is induced by his family 
and others to consult a psycho-analyst. Analysis reveals that his original 
leaving of his work was merely a substitute action for his later behavior 
in leaving home. His worry and over-anxiety about his profession is 
really a substitute for another form of anxiety which is unconscious. 


Consciously he believes that he loves his wife; but he is extremely 
restless, and analysis reveals the fact that he is not able, and never 
has been able, really to give his love to any woman because he thinks 
of every woman as if she were his mother. Therefore his wife, who 
now appears to him in the role of both wife and mother, brings up in 
his unconscious a painful conflict that began in his childhood, of the nature 
of which he is not aware. It may be shown that he was through- 
out his boyhood resentful and aloof and shrinking even from his 
mother. This conflict, we have seen in an earlier lecture, is known as 
the Oedipus Complex, and it would appear to be the only adequate 
explanation of this man’s behavior. 


Now let us note that the violent taboo which this man felt in regard 
to persons of the opposite sex is really a conditioned reflex. For the 
normal response there has been substituted a strong negative response. 
This negative response, the conflict and the sense of emotional failure, 
is itself conditioned so that it appears in overt behavior, or consciousness, 
as a fear of failure in his work or anxiety concerning his professional 
career. His running away from his work, as we have said, is really the 
symbolic expression of his wish to run away from home, a wish for 
which he gave no reason and which he cannot consciously recognize. This 
wish is what I meant by the term delayed response to stimulus. It is a 
response which becomes associated, therefore, or conditioned, with many 
future stimuli which are unrecognized, so that there may have been 
years during which unrecognized stimuli were perpetually functioning 
to excite this delayed form of response into activity. The restlessness 
which the man felt resulted from his impulse to act in ways that he did 
not understand. Yet there was no way in which he could make himself 
conscious of all this because the reflexes which constitute the delayed 
response were not organized in the man’s habitual behavior-patterns. 
This case illustrates what we mean by the unconscious. 


The Influence of the Unconscious on Behavior. 


I have given this illustration in the attempt to state the facts of the 
Freudian conception of the unconscious in such terms as will not make it 
necessary for us to assume that wishes and thoughts are somehow stored 


153 


up in a mysterious receptacle known as the unconscious. I am sure that 
much of the disinclination among psychologists to accept Freud comes 
from the fact that his terminology involves the apparent paradox of 
unconscious ideas, memories and wishes. 


Let us now note the influence of the unconscious upon the behavior 
of normal persons. Many illustrations of this fact may be seen in Freud’s 
book, “‘ The Psychology of Everyday Life” and in Brill’s, “ Fundamental 
Conceptions of Psycho-Analysis.’’ All persons normally must achieve a 
very great amount of repression in order that their mental life may be 
coordinated at ail. All learning or conditioning of reflex is, in fact, a 
form of repression. The discipline which the young child must endure 
in order to become a social being has as its end effective repression 
of this sort. Most adults have forgotten what it is to be a child. They 
have forgotten not only the things which they have repressed, but also 
much of the process of repression itself. This process is really painful. 
It makes the children cry. How many times has the child to be told 
“no.” With what resistance must it develop habits of obedience and of 
adjustment to other persons. Bodily habits must be trained; social habits, 
achieved. In all of which punishment, restraint and self-surrender are 
commonplaces. Where repression is finally successful the individual is 
normal, but there are many factors which make for failure. Wrong educa- 
tional methods, over-indulgence or too great strictness on the part of the 
parents, or precocious disillusion on the part of the child regarding any 
one of a thousand things, may result in trauma and fixation which ever 
afterward cripple the individual in certain respects. And perhaps there 
iS no One, even among normal people, who has not suffered to some degree 
at least in these ways. Now such training together with psychological 
accidents that may go with it, means that many forms of response to 
stimulus are delayed and conditioned. But some traces of the original 
reflexes remain and operate in the ways that I have tried to set forth. 
McDougall says that the instincts set the ends and furnish the driving 
force for all human activity, from the most trivial and primitive up 
to the highest and most complex. It would be more correct to say, that 
it is not instinct as such which so dominate us but certain “ complexes,” 
that is, we are all greatly influenced by our repressed impulses together 
with their unrecognized stimuli. 


Note what we mean by temperament. Our “temperament” consists 
of many kinds of attractions and repulsions, of elation or depression, 
of queer whimsicalities, hobbies, hopes, of which we cannot give a logical 
account. These things emanate from the unconscious: they are the uncon- 
scious. Psycho-dnalysts, together with William James, have pointed out 
the fact that even the greatest and most deliberate philosophers are influ- 
enced by their temperament to such an extent that their thinking is never 
pure logic, but is always modified by factors which are extra-rational. Thus 
a Plato is seeking with all his independent pursuit of knowledge to construct 
a logical system of ideas which will serve him as a refuge from a world 
where time is everlastingly creating unexpected realities and is forever 
sweeping all things away. The thinking of a Locke or a Hume, hard- 
headed as it is, is motivated in no small degree by a resistance to medieval- 
ism which comes largely from unconscious impulses. 


154 


Freud and Brill and other psycho-analysts have frequently pointed 
out the fact that such trivial mental phenomena as errors, slips of the 
tongue, etc., are determined by unconscious impulses. Brill gives a number 
of rather amusing illustrations of this fact. The following are typical: 
at an evening gathering the hostess has served her guests refreshments 
which are anything but adequate. The company is discussing Theodore 
Roosevelt; one of the guests remarks, that, at any rate, Roosevelt gives 
people a “square deal.” What she actually says is that Roosevelt gives 
people a “square meal.” ‘There is general laughter because the uncon- 
scious intent is here easily recognized. Again: one of Brill’s patients 
is very much given to the use of powder and rouge. The physician advises 
her to perform a difficult task and return and report to him afterward. 
When she returns for consultation, the doctor intends to put the question: 
“How did you make out?”; to his embarrassment, however, he says: 
“How did you make up?” Again, a woman forty years old is given 
the telephone number of a friend. The number is 1740. When asked 
if she could remember this number she laughingly said, “ Yes. Seventeen 
is the age I wish I were, and forty is unfortunately the age I am.” 
However, in writing the number down she writes it 1704; the mistake, 
we are told, is due to her unconscious resistance to the number 40. 


During the war a statesman who was deeply grieved over the enor- 
mous human slaughter, in an oration referred to international morality. 
What he said, however, was international mortality. If you watch 
yourself and other persezis in such commonplace errors or acts of forget- 
ting, you will often find illustrations of this sort. When we lose things 
there is commonly an unconscious reason. One frequently leaves an 
umbrella at the home of a friend where he has enjoyed a happy evening 
and where he wishes to return. An interesting error in printing came 
to my notice recently. A reactionary paper, describing an uproar created 
by members of the Labor Party in the House of Commons in England, 
referred to the event as the climax of socialist agitation. The word 
appeared in print as “ slimax.”’ <A typographical error of this nature 
may pass unnoticed through a half dozen hands, author, typist, proof 
reader, printing room, if it so happens that all these men have the same 
dislike of the proletariat. 


Recently a psychologist published an analysis of the errors made by 
a typist in copying a manuscript. The errors were very revealing. Other 
actions such as collecting and hoarding, hobbies, and so forth, are known 
to be motivated by unconscious impulses and to be primarily symbolic 
actions or substitute responses for repressed desires. And there are 
psychopathic habits, such as excessive drinking or pathological smoking, 
cases where the person who has such a habit loathes himself and would 
give anything if he could free himself, and yet is unable to do so. In ail 
such cases the behavior is compulsive; that is, it is determined by the 
unconscious. 


Brill says that in choosing a career one is very likely to be motivated 
by unconscious tendencies. He says this is also often the case in choosing 
a mate. It is a very common fact that men marry wives who resemble 
their mothers. This is illustrated by the song which was sung by soldiers 
during the war, “I want a little girl just like the little girl who married 


155 


Pa.” This fact of the unconscious is known as a “ mother fixation.’ An- 
other form of this fixation is seen in the common habit of men who have 
lived loose lives, of singing songs about their mothers and of being unduly 
sentimental about their memories of her. 


From this purely personal manifestation of unconsciously motivated 
behavior we should move on to a consideration of the role which the 
unconscious plays in social behavior. We shall have many occasions to 
note this fact, when later in the course we consider some of the problems 
of social psychology. Many forms of religious belief, many social move- 
ments, much of patriotism, many of the determinants of both radicalism 
and conservatism, many of the causes of war and social strife, are seen to 
be results of factors in the unconscious. 


Some of these factors we should point out a little more specifically. 
Of course, there are many forms of unconsciously stimulated fear. These 
are called phobias. The traditional fear of mice, snakes and certain 
insects belongs in this class, as does the spinster’s morbid fear of burglars 
and also often the sudden fear of dogs which a little child may develop. 
Brill says that in many cases the fear of dogs is really the boy’s fear of 
his father. The same is doubtless true of the fear of the devil which 
was fashionable in the middle ages. On the social plane, phobias may 
have very serious results. Many of the cruelest actions of crowds, such 
as the persecutions that have taken place in the name of religion, wars 
and so on, can really be traced back to phobias of one sort or another. 
The unfortunate habit of the mass of persecuting its prophets, and even 
in our own day resisting the discoverers of new truths, is due to the 
phobia concerning the new. 


Another form of unconsciously motivated activity is known as com- 
pulsion. There are certain neurotics who suffer from this symptom, find 
themselves constantly making certain grimaces or gestures, or performing 
certain ceremonial acts like perpetual hand washing, writing alibis for 
themselves, and so forth. The ceremonialism of such neurotics is sym- 
bolic of something repressed. It is really a form of conditioning of certain 
reflexes so that the ceremonial act is a substitute for the inhibited one. 
Persons suffering from this ceremonialism perform certain routine actions 
as ends in themselves and are perfectly miserable unless they do so. 
Certain forms of social behavior are forms of ceremonialism, such as 
saluting the flag. Much religious practice should be classified under this 
head, and also a very large part of our conventional morality. Behavior 
of this sort is not adjustment to situations. It is rigmarole. 


Another way in which the unconscious may dominate behavior we 
should call compensation or over-compensation. Where there is any feel- 
ing of psychic loss or inferiority, the unconscious will fabricate something 
which has the function of making up for this loss. Thus the protest 
against the feeling of inferiority may determine one to put on a bold 
front, to swagger and assume the role of a very pompous and conceited 
individual. Likewise, persons whose interests are unconsciously fixed on 
sexual practices which are unacceptable to consciousness, or upon the 
obscene, frequently become puritanical and prudish, giving the appearance 
of great innocence. Such persons show a morbid tendency to being 


156 


shocked. They frequently become moral reformers, are very much con- 
cerned about their neighbors’ morals, and demand a censorship of books, 
motion pictures, the stage and the like. Compensation of this kind is really 
a negative expression of a morbid infantile fixation. 


Substitution is another form of behavior which the unconscious may 
assume. It frequently occurs in social behavior. If a man is insulted 
by one to whom he cannot talk back, he may kick the cat or swear at his 
stenographer. That is to say, when one finds it impossible to express an 
impulse in one situation he may express it in another. The mob in 
Omaha which was bent on lynching certain negroes, when the authorities 
rescued its intended victims, attacked the mayor. An interesting illustra- 
tion of substitution occured in New York City a few years ago. The 
mayor at that time, John P. Mitchell, was a candidate for re-election. Mr. 
Mitchell had done two things which deeply offended some of the voters. 
First, he had brought upon himself the bitter opposition of certain religious 
groups because of the way in which he had permitted their organized 
charity to be held up to public criticism. Second, America was rapidly 
drifting toward participation in the great war, and Mr. Mitchell had 
strongly identified himself with the pro-war factions, thus arousing the 
hostility of many pacifists and persons with pro-German sympathies. Now 
neither of these forms of hostility could at that time be openly expressed, 
and the opponents of the administration had to devise substitutes, some 
political propaganda some issue which they could openly express. 


The so-called “ Gary Schools” were seized upon as the issue of the 
campaign. Really the “ Gary Schools ”’ were an unimportant fact, but they 
soon became the symbol by which the real opposition to the mayor could be 
expressed. For the Gary school was in the first place a departure from 
the usual educational methods and could easily become an issue which 
was substituted for the issue about the charitable institutions. 


Second, the Gary Schools bore the name of the town of Gary, Indi- 
ana, where this method was first applied. But Gary has as its most 
prominent industry the steel trust for whose president the town was 
named. Hence, the Gary school was a “steel trust school,’ and steel 
meant munition makers, and munition makers meant the pro-war party. 
In opposing the Gary school men could therefore register their opposition 
to our entering the war at a time when feeling ran so high that in 
no other way could such opposition be so publicly participated in. Hun- 
dreds of thousands of people suddenly became excited about the Gary 
schools, indignant to a degree far beyond anything which this innocent 
educational experiment might otherwise have aroused. Here the Gary 
school issue was a substitute for a form of indignation which very many 
persons felt but did not admit even to themselves. 


There is another manifestation of the unconscious which deserves a 
word. I refer to the phenomenon of projection. By projection psycholo- 
gists mean the habit which people have of escaping responsibilities for 
their own deeds or wishes by attributing them to some body else. This is 
a very common practice and occurs among persons both normal and 
abnormal. ‘Two political parties in a contest will each accuse the other 
of certain intentions, such as the wish to graft and exploit. The chances 
are that both are right, only that each is attributing to the other its own 


157 


unconscious wishes. The same is true of nations at war. A paranoiac who 
has murderous intentions toward someone does not admit to himself that 
he hates his intended victim. He always says to himself, “ He hates me,” 
or, “ He is conspiring against me” or “is exerting evil influences against 
me.’’ A common social form of projection is the love of scandal. People 
who indulge in scandal commonly are talking about things which they 
want to do themselves. The scandal monger may enjoy his own rottenness 
vicariously. 


An interesting path which the unconscious may take is known as 
regression or the return to an earlier state of emotional development. 
Many forms of nervous diseases are due to such regression but there is a 
slight tendency toward it in every one. In a previous lecture I have 
discussed this phenomenon. A sociological instance of it may be found 
in the father and mother symbols current in religious mythology. Dr. 
Otto Rank in his psychological discussion of myths, particularly legends 
concerning the birth of the hero, calls attention to this fact of regression. 
There are many myths in which the hero is abandoned by his noble parents, 
exposed and brought up by humble foster parents, only later to have 
his really high birth disclosed and to be restored to the exalted station 
to which he was born. Such myths commonly contain a re-birth symbol, 
such as drawing out of the water, or the existence of more than one 
mother image in the story. Rank says that, psychologically interpreted, 
these hero myths show a type of reasoning which is most highly developed 
in the paranoiac, who frequently-imagines that his parents are not his 
real parents and that he himself is a person of nobler lineage. This is 
a form of protest against the feeling of inferiority. But it is also an 
infantile type of thinking. For it is said to occur as a common experience 
in many children when they first find themselves suffering from a feeling 
of aloofness because they have discovered that they are no longer the 
object of the entire affection of their parents, who are bound together 
by a mysterious attraction which excludes the child. The child disillusioned 
about his parents often goes back in fancy to the earlier images which 
suggest the time when he had no conflict about his parents but instead 
idealized them. This infantile type of thinking is so common that it 
characterizes the mythology of most peoples. 


Finally, the unconscious may be made to take the form that psycho- 
pathologists characterize as sublimation. In sublimation the repressed re- 
sponse or impulse becomes so conditioned that it is attached to forms of 
thought and behavior which are socially acceptable. Probably the most 
universal type of sublimation is art, in which erotic tendencies are sym- 
bolized in such ways as not only to adorn and beautify our world but to 
transform the sex impulse itself so that it is characterized by such values 
as loyalty, romantic affection and devotion to high ideals, 


* * *K KK K  * 


Must we be forever the helpless victims of our unconscious? In one 
sense, yes. We may lift many of our impulses into consciousness but the 
great bulk of them will remain conditioned in the ways I have described. 
And perhaps this is desirable except in cases where the forms of action 
which the unconscious impels us to result in a lack of adjustment to the 
environment. Without the unconscious our mental life would be much 


158 


narrower, in some ways, and perhaps we should become literal-minded and 
pedantic. Certainly we should lose much in the way of wit and fancy, 
whimsicality, spontaneity and artistic creativeness. Much that men call 
inspiration is really a phenomenon of the unconscious. 


Yet this unconscious must be controlled as much as possible. It is 
discouraging to us to realize how even with the best effort we are still 
in the grip of elements in our nature which are irrational and often anti- 
social. So far as possible these elements should be brought to the light 
so that they may be consciously and deliberately grappled with. It is 
important that in the emotional situations of our lives we should not seek 
to evade the facts or run away from our problems as most neurotics seem 
to do. So far as possible thinking should be made objective, for it is 
objective thinking which has given us our scientific advance and in a 
world organized as ours is, we can adjust ourselves to the conditions of 
such advance only by habits similar to those which have created it. 
Fortunately to day certain portions of humanity seem to be moving in 
the direction of greater and more wholesome candor. Many of the 
repressions which survive from older ages and are kept going by unad- 
justed persons are being replaced by new and more adequate forms of 
conscious control. The intelligent world to-day is outgrowing many taboos. 
Coercion and obscurantism are fighting hard to check this tendency to more 
wholesome living. But it is possible that the new age of reason, the day 
of more courageous self-criticism, better self-knowledge, and open-mind- 
edness and honesty generally is approaching. This is the hope of the 
social psychologist, 


LECTURE XI 
The Significance of the Intelligence Tests. 


















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AMY 
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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INTELLIGENCE TESTS 


OST people have now some knowledge of the so-called intelli- 
gence tests. The attempt to test out the intellectual capacity 
of people, to note their differences, properly belongs in the realm 
of applied psychology, though it has great theoretic importance, 
particularly for matters sociological. The tests are now used in many 
schools and colleges. Thousands of students have submitted to such 
an examination. In psychiatry the tests are used to detect feeble- 
mindedness. Of course, we are all more or less familiar with the 
army tests. 


The aim of intelligence testing is to indicate roughly an indi- 
vidual’s ability to learn, or to adapt himself to new situations. In our 
modern life, with its great complexity and its tremendous demands 
upon the intellect, it is not surprising that we should seek to estimate 
men in respect to their intelligence. For it is through intelligence 
to-day—and in the future it will be increasingly so—that people must 
adapt themselves to the world in which they live. In a sense this 
application of psychology is really only a more careful and accurate 
way of doing what has heretofore been done simply by the practice 
of common sense. 


Common Sense and Mental Testing. 


It has always been found necessary to “size” people up, to form 
some judgment concerning their character and general level of work, 
their ability and their reliability. Employers and parents and educators 
have always done this and in many cases it has been done with a fair meas- 
ure of shrewdness and accuracy. But on the whole it has been shown 
that the ordinary ways of estimating people are erroneous. Prejudice 
and irrelevant matters often lead to wrong conclusions. What com- 
mon sense has lacked has been an accurate and objective and wholly 
impartial basis for judging. The application of psychology to this 
problem is still, in spite of the enormous number of tests that have 
been given, in the experimental stage. It is too early to say that any 
test has been devised which is final. Yet it is interesting that there is 
a high degree of correspondence in results among the best of these 
tests. There can certainly be no @ priori reason why psychologists 
should not be permitted to try to do well what common sense has all 
along had to do ina bungling way. 


Yet there has been a good deal of opposition to such an attempt. It 
seems to many people an undemocratic practice, and the results of such 
a practice are resisted by many because they seem to be out of harmony 
with the dogma of equality. Much of our political philosophy is derived 
from early 19th century Humanitarianism and carries over the idealiza- 
tion of the mass which was characteristic of that point of view. Thus it 
is still believed by many that all men possess an “ identical principle of 
humanity ” and that if there are any differences in men in respect to wis- 
dom or goodness, they are due to the fact that unfortunately the environ- 
ment prevents certain persons from expressing this humanity which is in 


[161] 


162 


them. It is not because of any inherited differences in capacity to learn 
that one man is a genius and another a dullard. A dullard too would be 
a genius if he had had an opportunity. In other words, the differences 
among men are held to be external and accidental and not inborn. Some- 
how the crowd always resents the suggestion that there is any native dis- 
tinction of worth among people. It carries the notion that one man is as 
good as another to the point of denying that there are hereditary factors 
of superiority and inferiority. 


It is precisely this alleged hereditary difference that the intelligence 
tests are devised to discover and emphasize. The tests are not intended 
to examine into one’s information or the amount of one’s learning. Every 
effort has been made to exclude from them any differences which are the 
result of external conditions. Of course, people do not have the same ad- 
vantages, and these better or worse opportunities show in our thought 
and behavior. Nevertheless, the problem remains. Given the same ad- 
vantages, will two persons, because of hereditary differences, react dif- 
ferently? The intelligence tests would seem to indicate that there are in- 
herited differences in ability to learn and that while, by conditioning 
people’s reflexes, the environment may equip us with different patterns 
of behavior, yet people differ by nature in the ease with which such 
patterns are acquired, and in the use they make of them. Strict environ- 
mentalism, the belief that environment rather than heredity determines 
human destiny, does not seem to allow for the fact that some pecple do 
on occasion meet new situations in new ways. If a man is wholly the pro- 
duct of his environment it is difficult to see how he, in any situation, be- 
comes the master of it. . Products do not, as a rule, turn around and con- 
dition their producers. What the intelligence tests, therefore, seek to 
find out is this ability to meet new situations. In other words, intelligence 
tests are simply concerned with “ gumption” or “ mother-wit.” 


Binet. 

The problem of testing this inherited mental capacity is very new. 
Alfred Binet began the study of school children in the latter part of the 
19th century and in 1905 published the results of his work. Binet sought 
to devise problems which the average child of a certain age could solve. 
After many efforts and after examining a large number of children, he 
set forth a certain number of such problems which corresponded to the 
mental capacity normal to a given period of mental growth. If Binet had 
published as the standard of mental life the problems which 50% of the 
children of any age could solve, he probably could have hit the mathe- 
matical average. But, dealing with a human problem he was, correctly, 
more lenient than this, and the test-problems he established finally for 
each year of childhood were those which he found in actual experience 
that 75% of all the children tested could solve. School work was left out 
when tests were given. The Binet test dealt with the child’s ability to 
think, to pay attention, to remember and to learn. Notice that the tests 
are testing ability, and not things learned. The tests are given to a child, 
and the highest test in the series which he can successfully pass is said 
to be his “ mental age.” Then his mental age is divided by his real age, 
and the result multiplied by 100 is called his intelligence quotient or 
“T. OQ.” Thus if the child has a mental age of 8 and an actual age of 6, 
his I. Q. will be 133.3. If he has a mental age of 6 and an actual age of 


163 


S his I. Q. is 75. ' Ii his I.Q. is much lower: than this, he is 
said to be mentally defective. Adults with I. QO. of 70 or 75 are called 
morons, and their mental age is somewhere between 12 and 14 years. 
Adults with a mental age between 8 and 10 are imbeciles, and those with 
a mental age below 8 are idiots. 


The Binet tests have been somewhat revised by a number of psychol- 
ogists in this country. Probably the best known American adaptation of 
them is the Binet-Stamford test by Dr. Lewis M. Terman. According to 
this test, it is generally held that a normal adult should have a mental age 
of at least 16. The practice of giving such tests to school children has 
met with some criticism. It is held that too much is made of language 
processes, that a child may be very intelligent and still may so misunder- 
stand what is required of him: that it does not indicate his real ability to 
solve problems. Dr. S. C. Kohs of the University of Oregon notes this 
difficulty and has devised a test which consists of manual work. A num- 
ber of cubes, the six sides of which are painted in different colors, must 
be arranged so as to copy various mosaic designs. The length of time re- 
quired for this work and the number of manuipulations required for com- 
pleting each pattern are noted and a standard is set for each age. This test 
can be given, therefore, both to adults and to children. I believe that on the 
whole the results of such tests agree with those of the Binet method, 
though there is probably a higher degree of accuracy in the former. 


It is often said that no standard can be raised which will correspond 
to the level of the work of 75% of the children tested. Furthermore, in 
order to determine a child’s mentality, tests should be given at various 
periods of his development and I believe this practice is usually followed. 
In most cases it is found that when a child has a low I. Q. in one period he 
will have a low I. Q. in the others. The same is true of those who have 
high intelligence quotient. That there is a regular normal process of 
mental development can hardly be denied. This may be noted if you watch 
the drawing of children of various ages. Give a little child a pencil and he 
will merely scribble; later, he will make a very crude figure, but there is 
no symmetry or balance. He may put both eyes in the same side of a 
human head. He does not attach the arms and legs to the human figure 
with any sense of their true relationships. It is only gradually that the 
child notices these relationships and is able to synthesize. At first the 
child thinks very much as animals probably think by associating concrete 
wholes. Later he begins to use abstract ideas, and finally he reacts to ab- 
sent stimuli as well as to present ones. 


If this is the usual order of mental development, it ought to be possible 
to work out tests which would show whether or not a child is developing 
normally even though there were not an absolute correspondence in these 
processes with the average level of attainment of any given year. The 
fact that the mental age of children may be above or below their true age 
is, therefore, indicative of precocity or of backwardness—if not of 
absolute intelligence. 


Again, it is said that it is impossible to isolate intelligence; that when 
we try to do so, we are merely talking about an abstraction. How, one 
asks, can the solving of these little arbitrary puzzles of which the test 
consists indicate anything of one’s ability to think? It might indicate 


164 


acctiracy, btit accuracy is not always the same as sagacity. A student, for 
instance, may be very inaccurate in arithmetic or algebra and quite su- 
perior in geometry. I think this is a fair criticism, but in fairness to the 
psychologists, it should be said that they are not trying to test out in- 
telligence as if it were an abstract thing or a given “ faculty.” As Kohs 
says, the attempt is made first to test out one’s ability to pay attention; to 
seize upon the relevant and significant factor in a situation; to analyze 
and discriminate differences, and finally to compare things, to discover 
new similarities, and to make syntheses. If you will recall what I said 
in the lecture on “ How We Think,” you will note that I analyzed think- 
ing into these same three kinds of ability. You will remember that James 
says the ability to seize the relevant factor, to discriminate differences, 
and to make new and fruitful comparisons, is something that cannot be 
taught. In the lecture on Habit, I referred to this ability as “ super- 
habit,’ and carefully pointed out the fact that such super-habits must 
be acquired by the individual himself. They cannot be conditioned in 
him from without. Thus it would seem that differences in mental rating 
may on the whole, indicate different levels of native intelligence, if we 
understand by native intelligence, not a thing given, but ability to perform 
work. 


Once we begin to think of people in terms of their I. Q., a number 
of social problems of a psychological nature are at once suggested. At- 
tempts have been made to learn if there is in the intelligence tests any 
confirmation of the eugenic doctrine that only congenital variations are 
inherited. Such tests as have been given would seem to indicate that this 
is the case. On the whole, the children of scholars and learned men 
show a higher intelligence quotient than those of the less educated. This 
might appear to lend support to the idea that effects of education are 
themselves inheritable. But it may be argued, on the other hand, that the 
ability to acquire an education is itself an indication of a relatively high 
order of native intelligence. Most biologists hold that this is true and 
that mental ability is transmissible in the germ-plasm. Some eugenists 
are very much alarmed because they fear that the family strains bearing 
these determinants of high mentality are being bred out of the race. As 
to this problem, it is too early to come to any final conclusion. Many 
more tests must be made. 


The question has also been raised whether there is any correspondence 
between the position of a family on the social ladder and its native in- 
telligence. Various tables of statistics have been published in order to 
prove that there is. But the number of persons tested in this respect is 
too small to enable us to generalize to the extent of saying that the basis 
of social distinction in our present competitive society is to any great ex- 
tent the result of selection of the higher forms of mind for social and 
economic success. In other words, few people will deny the fact that 
social position in America depends very largely on the merely accidental 
possession of money. Furthermore, few will deny, in view of the fact 
that so many war-millionaires and profiteers abound, that the wrong kind 
of people may get rich. However, these new rich may be exceptional and 
their number must not be over-emphasized. Many more tests must be 
given before it can be said that there is any close correspondence between 
mentality and our present class distinction. 


165 


Another question has been raised. Is there any correspondence be- 
tween differences of intelligence and differences of race and nationality? 
Tables of statistics have been published which would indicate the mental 
superiority of Americans of British descent over immigrants from south- 
ern Europe, and also over negroes. ‘These tables, however flattering as 
they are to many of us, are not wholly conclusive. Many of the immi- 
grants from southern Europe are themselves members of a rather low 
peasant class who cannot be taken as representative of the nations or 
races to which they belong. The fact that Italian railroad laborers might 
have a low mental rating does not indicate that Italians as a whole are 
mentally inferior to the English or Scotch. Moreover, it is interesting to 
note that the negroes in the north show a higher mental rating than those 
in the south, and this would make it appear as if, in spite of efforts to 
the contrary, the mental tests had not yet succeeded in eliminating all 
environmental factors. The best we can say is that perhaps some day, 
when the tests are more perfected and those who give them are better 
trained, more light may be thrown on such problems. At present, how- 
ever, the wisest course would seem to be to wait for the accifmulation of 
a larger body of facts before any generalizations are attempted. It would 
have been well if psychologists had had ten years more in which to study 
and make experiments with these tests before they were called upon to 
use them in any situation of great theoretical or practical social importance. 
Perhaps if this had been the case, the army mental tests would have been 
less subjected to criticism. For the whole matter of testing was a little 
premature. 


The Army Tests. 


In the winter of 1917-18, when the Government of the United States, 
as everyone knows, was training our troops for over-seas service in the 
war, a group of the ablest psychologists in the country was requested to 
prepare a set of mental tests which would enable the authorities to train 
men more rapidly and to select for special tasks those who gave evidence 
of exceptional ability. As Professor Yerkes says, “the original purposes 
of the committee in the preparation of methods for intelligence testing 
were less important than the uses actually made of the results.” It was 
the intention to prepare an examination that would indicate the drafted 
men who were of too low a grade mentally to make satisfactory privates 
in the army. “It was desired also to indicate if possible those who were 
mentally unstable or who might prove incorrigible so far as army dis- 
cipline was concerned. In addition the committee hoped to be able to 
pick out exceptional types of men who could be used for special tasks 
that demanded a high degree of intelligence.” 


As Yerkes also says, tt was unfortunate from the scientific point of 
view, that many lines of investigation could not be carried out. The im- 
mediate pressing practical need was too great. And it is not claimed by 
the committee of psychologists that the tests give a wholly correct picture 
of the levels of intelligence in America. Those who use the tests for 
strictly theoretical ends should do so with some caution since the purpose 
of the tests was limited to the practical consideration of rapidly training 
an army for military service. However, the results of the tests are very 
important indeed. For never before have psychologists had an oppor- 
tunity of studying under any controlled conditions so large a body of men. 


160 


The test was given to something over 1,700,000 persons who were 
drawn from all walks of life and who altogether may be taken as a fair 
cross-section of the population. The test-problems were very carefully 
worked out and while they often seem trivial to the lay mind, they are, 
like the Binet test, devised to discover, not the degree of an individual’s 
training or experience or information, but rather his ability to think 
quickly and accurately. Two tests were devised; one, called the Alpha 
test, which was given to men who could read and write English, and the 
other, called the Beta test, which was given to men who were illiterate or 
unacquainted with our language. This latter test consisted of such things 
as piecing together the several parts of pictures which had been cut up 
in various ways; tracing through a maze, and other simple puzzles. 


Let me give a few examples of the Alpha tests. I have heard a 
number of educated men say they were quite sure they could not pass 
this test. Others have said that it was so simple as to be quite ridicu- 
lous. It is difficult to give a correct idea of the various tests which 
were used, in the brief space of this lecture. Test I, for instance, 
called “ Form 5,” consists in marking diagrams. One of the problems 
is as follows: 5 circles stand in a row. The test person is required 
to make a cross in the first circle and figure I in the last circle. Time 
allotted is 5 seconds. Another problem consists of three circles in a 
row, also the words “yes” and “no” printed on the same line, and 
the requirement is as follows: “Ifa captain is superior to a corporal, 
put a cross in the second circle. If not, draw a line under the word 
“no.” The time allowed is 10 seconds. Some of the problems in this 
test are more complicated, but they are all of this nature. 


Test II consists of 20 simple arithmetical problems, such as: 
“Tf you save $7 a month for 4 months, how much will you save?” 
“Tf aman runs a hundred yards in 10 seconds, how many feet will he 
run in 1-5 of a second?” ‘The time allotted for the entire test is 5 
minutes. 


Test III is designed to test practical judgments. Here are two 
typical problems: 


“Cats are useful because— 
They catch mice; 

They are gentle; 

They are afraid of dogs.” 


The person tested is required to check the correct answer. Another 
typical problem in the test is as follows: 


“ Why is it colder near the equator ? 


The poles are always farther from the sun; 
The sunshine falls obliquely at the poles; 
‘Thete jis more ce: 


Time allowed is 114 minutes for 16 such problems. 


Test IV was designed to determine a person’s ability to compare 
and discriminate. There are 40 groups of words, two words in a 


~ 


167 


group. Some of the words are synonyms and some are opposites, as 
for instance: 


wet, dry 
in, out 
class, group 
effeminate, virile 
confess, admit 


The person tested must indicate whether these pairs of words are 
synonyms or opposites. Three minutes are allowed for the test. 

Test V consists of short sentences in which the words are placed 
in confused order. The person tested is required to straighten out 
the sentence in his own mind and then indicate whether the statement 
is true or false. The following are typical: 


“Lions strong are.” 
“Not eat gun powder to good is.” 


Time allowed is two minutes for the 24 sentences. 


Test VI consists in completing a series of numbers, as for 


instance: 
1 2 4 SUS Omer SZ 


The tested person is required to add two more numericals which would 
logically follow in the sequence. There are 20 problems; time allowed is 
three minutes. 


Test VII is designed to test one’s ability to note analogies. Here 
is a typical problem: 


gun—shoots; knife—run cuts hat bird 


The person tested is required to note how the first two words are 
related and then to underscore the word which is related in the same 
way to the third word. The correct answer in this case would be to 
underscore the word “cuts.” There are 40 such problems and the 
time allowed is three minutes. 


Test VIII is designed to test out simple common sense informa- 
tion. I am not sure that it is quite in line with the other tests because 
of this very fact. Here are some of the problems: ‘The pitcher has an 
important place in tennis, football, baseball, handball.” ‘Arson is a 
term used in medicine, law, theology, pedagogy.” The person tested 
is required to underscore the word which will make a correct state- 
ment. Four minutes is allowed for 40 such questions. 


These tests were varied somewhat so that it would be impossible 
for those who had taken them to coach others who were to be tested 
later. On the whole they do not seem to be difficult problems, though 
I believe that the shortness of the time allotted is open to some 
criticism. Professor Yerkes says that varying the time did not mate- 
rially change the results. Personally I am sure that it would change 
my results. I cannot think at all when I know that I am being hur- 
ried. JI shall have more to say on this point a little later in the 
lecture. 


168 


Let us note on what basis the rating was done. There are 212 
possible points which may be made in these eight tests. Those who 
scored correctly a minimum of 135 were marked A; those who scored 
correctly 105 were marked B; 75, C++; 45, C; 25, C-; 15 D; none D-, 
The A grade is said to correspond to 75 C+, 45 C, 25 C-, 15 D, none D-, 
mental age of 18 and over; B 16 and over; C+, 15; C, 13-14; C-12; D, 
11; D-10 and below. Those who made the grade A are said to be very 
superior. B represents the type of mind which can graduate successfully 
from college and can grapple effectively with the problems of life requiring 
insight and self-command. C+ represents the type, let us say, of the 
ordinary high school graduate. C, just the general average, and the other 
grades below average. Of the whole white draft, the percentage of men 
making the various grades is as follows: 





Ae east 
Bie ene 
Guireaatsi2 
Cee net 
CO 8'8 
IBY ata: BP 
Dosen a 

100.2 


The total of these percentages is .2% more than 100. I do not know 
whether this is an error on the part of Yerkes and his co-workers or 
whether it is due to the fact that a few others than the draft were 
added. I know that the rating of officers is included in this result. 


Inferences from the Army Tests. 


The striking fact is that the results of the army tests apparently 
show that 49% of the people in this country have a mental age of 
about 13, while only 4% give evidence of superior ability, and only 
12% could be expected to behave with any originality of adjustment 
in a critical situation. Some extremely pessimistic inferences have 
been drawn from these figures. Mr. Lothrop Stoddard, Prof. Wm. 
McDougall, Mr. Albert Wiggam and others see in the results of the 
army tests a very gloomy outlook for modern civilization. I cannot 
enter into any detailed discussion of these writers. The case they 
make is about as follows: Industrial civilization is new. It is be- 
coming rapidly more and more complex. It may already have de- 
veloped to the point where it demands more intelligent activity on 
the part of the average man than he is able to put forth. This is not 
all. It is said that mental ability is an inherited factor; that it is 
carried in the germ-plasm. According to these writers 50% of the 
children born in each generation are the children of persons whose 
mentality is so low that they would be classed by the army intelli- 
gence rating as belonging to the last 25%. Again, if we should draw 
a line separating those who are of average intelligence and over, 
from those who are below the average, it is said that the lower half 
produces 80% of the children born in this generation. The higher the 
intelligence rating, the fewer the children. Families with a rating of 


169 


A and B are not reproducing their numbers. From this fact it is 
argued that intelligence is being bred out of the race, at the very 
time when civilization needs it most. 


Evidence brought forward in support of this fact has been com- 
piled by Mr. Alleyne Ireland. He says that before 1800 11% of the 
men who ranked as geniuses in England were the sons of artisans; 
that in the first quarter of the nineteenth century this percentage had 
dropped to 7%, and that to-day it is only 4%, and this, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the working class in England has been steadily gain- 
ing political, educational and economic opportunities, and notwith- 
standing the fact that through the same period of time the working 
class has practically doubled in numbers. His figures may be in- 
correct and there may be many environmental factors involved so that 
one should not draw too hasty conclusions. 


I think the conclusions of all these writers are premature for 
reasons which I stated earlier in this lecture. However, such infer- 
ences, have created quite a storm among liberals, radicals and others 
who, in their defense of our democratic dogma, have gone farther 
than merely to question the reasoning of such writers as McDougall 
and Stoddard, and have in some cases shown what seems to me an 
unnecessary hostility to intelligence testing itself. 


It is argued by some that the results of the army tests have only 
75% correspondence with those of the Binet test; that no definition 
of intelligence has been agreed upon by the testers; that, if according 
to the Binet standards, the average mental age of adults is 16, the 
army tests showing it to be 13, would imply that the average is below 
the average which is absurd. Again, it is said that none of the tests 
really test intelligence; that the problems are foolish, trivial little 
stunts; that no one can estimate the mental ability of an individual 
in an hour. And it is feared that the tests may become “ engines of 
cruelty.” For the wicked psychologists may some day presume to 
test everybody and then in arbitrary and tyrannical fashion assign 
each one to a superior or inferior position in life. 


As to this last argument, I do not think there is any very great 
danger that the philosophers will ever become kings in our democ- 
racy. The most serious criticism of the tests is that of Dr. S. C. Kohs. 
He says that previous experience is a factor not sufficiently taken into 
account by those who conducted the tests. In other words, a man 
who is a mental worker by profession would be more at home in 
taking the test than one who, though having the same natural intel- 
lectual capacity is not used to such things. The latter, therefore, not 
only must compete with the former, but also must adapt himself to a 
new situation, so that he is at a disadvantage. Again, there are the 
difficulties of testing men in groups. All sorts of irrelevant factors may 
enter. For instance, men tested in a group may take the test less 
seriously than they would if tested individually, and there may be 
developed the crowd spirit in which resistance to being tested would 
take the form of a deliberate lowering of the type of response. Many 
ex-soldiers have told me that this sort of thing frequently hap- 
pened. However, Yerkes and Yoakum say that there are no great 
differences in the general results when the tests were given singly. 


170 


An important point is made of the fact that these tests were often 
given under physical conditions which were highly disadvantageous. We 
learn that they were sometime given after long and severe drill or marches, 
when the soldiers were exhausted and oftentimes the surroundings were 
anything but comfortable. In answer to this it may be said that the 
physical conditions, however bad, were the same for all members of a 
given military unit. and this did not prevent the individuals from making 
different grades in their answers to the test-problems. 


I have already spoken about the speed required. Although Yerkes 
says that the results were not greatly different when the time was length- 
ened, I am sure no one would say that speed is necessarily correlated 
with intelligence. Many times a person’s reaction is delayed because of 
emotional factors. We saw this when we discussed the Jung associa- 
tion tests. For these and other reasons Kohs argues that the average 
mental age, 13, is too low; that there is no reason why the results of the 
army tests should cause us to abandon the standard for adult mentality, 
set by the Binet tests as 16 years. However, Kohs does not argue that 
this raising of the general average would affect at all the scatter, or in 
other words, the relative differences in mentality or the percentage of the 
population making the various grades. Perhaps there is something in the 
criticism that the tests do not really test the individual’s intelligence as 
such, but rather are samplings of his general level of performance of 
work. Certainly there are many valuable mental qualities besides those 
emphasized in the tests. Yet it must be said that the army tests gave re- 
sults which were satisfactory on the whole for the purposes for which 
they were designed. They did enable the authorities to select the men 
who had the potentialities required for making a good officer, they did 
single out the soldiers who were too stupid to learn the minimum required 
in military training; they enabled the army to equalize the various mili- 
tary units, in such a way that by putting in each division an equal number 
of A, B, C, & D men, all could be trained with equal rapidity. Hence al- 
though the end in view was quite special, the results in actual experience 
would indicate that the test did bring out real differences among men, and 
that these differences were of an intellectual nature, 


* * * * *K KK K * 


What can be said for the tests? I think much of the opposition to 
them is based on misunderstanding. Certainly those who devised the 
army tests did not make the claim that they were yet wholly accurate. 
One should distinguish between the results of the tests themselves and 
the inferences which are sometimes drawn from them. I understand that 
in colleges there is a correspondence between the grade a student makes 
in his mental test and his general standard of college work. Back of the 
test there is a vast amount of serious research; and it cannot be charged 
against the psychologists that they have devised these tests in order to 
discourage radicals or to bring forth new arguments against democracy. 
Certainly there is nothing in these tests that justifies the strong in ex- 
ploiting the weak, and, as I said, we need not fear that psychologists are 
going to catch every one on the street and test him mentally and hand 
him a card which will indicate his I. QO. and settle his fate. 


171 


If the tests are finally proved to indicate inherited mental ability, 
their social significance will be great, since it is fairly well established by 
the biologists that this type of ability can be increased in the world only 
by the right kind of selective breeding. It is too early yet to draw many 
sociological inferences from the tests. But of one thing we may be 
fairly sure. Mental testing has come to stay. There will be more of it 
in the future than there is at present. It will, of course, have to 
justify itself and the methods will be perfected as greater experience is 
gained. Already there seems to be no denying the fact that some 
persons are naturally mentally superior to others. 


This alone would seem to demand a reconsideration of the demo- 
cratic dogma of equality. Once we get a scientific statement of this 
fact and better knowledge of the degrees in which men differ men- 
tally, there necessarily will follow very far-reaching changes in our 
social philosophy. Already the tests have caused people to pay more 
attention to intelligence and its worth, and have called attention to a 
type of difference or distinction among men which heretofore has 
never had its inning. If men differ in the way the tests would indi- 
cate, it is difficult to see how we can in the future avoid coming to 
some sort of stratified society or “ order or rank” as Neitzche would 
say. Society always has been stratified, but heretofore the distinc- 
tions recognized among men and given social importance have been 
fighting ability, power of command, ownership of land, the accidents 
of birth, the possession of property. Mental testing may sometime 
give us a new basis of distinction—real mental and personal superior- 
ity. With such a distinction generally recognized, there would be 
some measure of justice in the resulting form of social organization. 
There would be more promise of social advance. For the first time 
in history men would be classified on the basis of their merits. Ability 
would have its opportunity. All society might go in for intellectual 
superiority. There would be more respect for human worth than has 
yet obtained in our affairs. 


REG TURE 
Is there a Group Mind? What governs the Behavior of 
Pecple in Society? 





IS THERE A GROUP MIND? WHAT GOVERNS 
THE BEHAVIOR OF PEOPLE IN SOCIETY? 


HIS question belongs to Social Psychology. It is a basic problem. 

What we think about it will determine our thought about many 
social questions. In fact, until we settle this question, we are unable to 
decide what social psychology is about. If we hold that the group mind 
is a reality, a sort of super-personal entity which exists over all the 
separate individuals who constitute society and yet includes them in a 
kind of higher self, then the aim of social psychology is obviously to 
study this larger group mind. We should seek to describe those mental 
processes in society which are not individual. We should strive to dis- 
cover how one group differs from another, and why. We should be con- 
cerned with the laws which govern the behavior of this group personality. 
We should seek by analogy with individual minds to set forth the habits 
and purposes of this larger self, to learn how it becomes conscious 
of itself; how individual purposes are made subordinate and individual 
wills controlled. We should probably also be concerned with the sacred- 
ness of institutions; the authority of customs and traditions; the claim 
of society upon the individual; and perhaps also with the alleged diseases 
of the social mind. 


If, on the other hand, we decide that the group mind is a fiction, a 
mere metaphor by which we give expression to the fact that there is a 
certain solidarity in the community and that mass interrelations have some 
mental or psychological meaning—then the aim of social psychology is 
something quite different. Our aim would be to study the reactions of 
individuals to social situations, to learn what is the difference between 
satisfactory and unsatisfactory mutual adjustment. We should also be 
interested in learning how individuals modify the behavior patterns of 
one another; how they exert influences upon one another; how and why 
men seek happiness in human fellowship and why they so often hurt one 
another. We should also wish to learn what motives lie behind certain 
social movements; what is the value of various social ideals and whether 
the many proposed programs of social reform will work advantageously. 
We should also ask what are the causes of social unrest; in what re- 
spects people differ from one another and in what they are alike. We 
should raise the question, What human types are represented by the 
various kinds of propaganda which are current among us; and what are the 
general effects of new inventions upon the behavior of men and women? 
We should wish also to know what is meant by social advance and who it 
is that creates progress. 


In other words, if we take the first point of view we shall think of 
people in the abstract; if we adopt the second, we shall think of people 
in the plural, and as concrete persons who happen to be associated to- 
gether in various ways and for the achievement of various ends. Sta- 
tistically speaking, we may ignore the separate and individual character- 
istics of people and speak impersonally about tendencies and general 


[175] 


176 


characteristics. This would be only a manner of speaking. We should 
all along be quite aware of the fact that the ultwmate social reality is the 
individual who thinks and feels and acts along with other individuals more 
or less like himself. 


I believe the latter to be the correct point of view. If we adopt it, 
I think we shall be able to answer all the real questions which I suggested 
under the first head, whereas if we adopt the point of view of the reality 
of the group mind, I doubt if we should be able to answer any sociological 
question very satisfactorily. For all we should be able to do would be 
to dwell upon the niceties of the analogies we might set up between the 
mentality of an imaginary individual and the equally imaginary collective 
mind. 


One should be suspicious of attempts to approach social problems in 
an abstract and @ priori manner. When we speak about that which in- 
cludes everybody we should ask whether we are not speaking about no- 
body at all. When we think of the whole as something apart from us, 
superior to us, and having ends and sanctities of its own which are op- 
posed to the purposes of any or all individuals, 1 am afraid we are merely 
setting up an idol. The day of idols is by no means over. The modern 
man too has his idols, and not the least dreadful of them is the idol of 
the group mind. 


The reason I am afraid of popular idols is because they always seem 
to demand of their worshippers human sacrifices. The world has just 
passed through a period in which it may be said to have sacrificed many 
millions of its youth and a great bulk of the wealth created by centuries 
of toil. The idol to which the sacrifice was made is that of the principle 
of nationalism, and nationalism is one of the forms which the idol of the 
group mind assumes. As Dr. Ralph Perry of Harvard University said, 
“One is readily confused by the spell of such expressions as the ‘na- 
tional life’ or ‘humanity.’ How infinitely richer, it may be objected, is 
the national life than any of its members. But one who voices such an 
objection betrays the fact that he is thinking of every thing that is Amer- 
ican instead of just those things which are national. Only a very small 
fraction of the things which the American nation includes can be said to 
be done by the nation as such. The nation does, perhaps, own the public 
domain or claim cable rights on the island of Yap or return to a state of 
normalcy ; in any case, the nation does not seek office, or beat its wife, or 
study Einstein, though all these things may be done by members of the 
American nation.” 


Perry also says, that “to argue that society is a person in this sense 
is to commit the ‘elementary logical fallacy of composition.’ An army 
includes the soldiers, but it does not possess in its own right the char- 
acters which its members possess. It includes soldiers who write letters 
to their mothers, but zt does not write letters to its mother.” 


The human sacrifice to which I have referred above is possible pri- 
marily because people think of states and nations as personalities having 
minds and souls which are more sacred than that of any or of all in- 
dividuals of the nation. They make this principle of nationalism an end 
in itself, a super-person whose dignity must be preserved at all costs, and 
any slur against whom must be avenged even though the avenging de- 


177 


stroy both the victors and the vanquished. If the principle of nationality 
exists independently of the members of the nation as a sort of group-soul, 
and if this soul has aims which are opposed to those individuals, it may be 
thought of as thriving even at the expense of everybody. 


If men thought of the principle of nationalism as a mere instrumental 
idea, the case would be very different. Then the function of nationalism 
is to enable people in a given area to live together more happily, to direct 
their attention to common objects, to encourage in them similar habits of 
behavior and increase through mutual discipline and devotion a higher 
mutual self-respect. In other words, the nation would exist for men, 
not men for the nation; and this is right. But when men speak of a 
national mind they are likely to conceive of this mind as a sort of in- 
visible monster, a leviathan, like one of those long dragons carried on the 
backs of hundreds of men which one sees in pictures of Chinese parades. 
The business of this dragon appears to be to fight other dragons, to rest 
as a heavy weight on the shoulders of those who carry it, to keep them 
all in line, to cover their eyes so that they cannot see where they are go- 
ing; also to terrify other people. Personifying it and idealizing it the 
way men do as a superior kind of collective person, the principle of 
nationalism becomes a menace to mankind, not, as it might, an instrument 
for good. And this is true of all group idols—church, class, race or party, 
or even humanity as a whole, when the group idea is made to appear to 
be not merely an idea which many men may entertain, but a thing in 
itself, more sacred than the persons who constitute the group. A group 
is not a “ thing;”’ it is simply a way of looking at the behavior of people. 
It has no more mind than the multiplication tables. It does not exist 
outside the thoughts and habits and relationships of individual persons. 


Why People Believe in the Group Mind. 


The idea of the group mind arises so easily out of popular habits of 
thinking that I wish to show how it has come about. It cannot be denied 
that man is a social animal. From pre-human times every human being 
has come into the world as a member of a family. Whatever form the 
family may take, it is a social situation. And it is out of families that 
clans and communities have developed. Dr. W. Trotter, the English 
psychologist, sees in this fact that man is essentially social, evidence of the 
“instinct of the herd.” This is not necessarily so. I have paid my re- 
spects to this alleged instinct in another lecture. It is sufficient to say 
that men normally grow up in an environment composed of other people. 
So important is this environment that the very idea of the self, as we 
saw in a previous lecture, contains elements which are essentialy social. 
Before one can have an idea of himself he must learn the use of the 
personal pronouns. In other words, he must have acquired language 
habits, and language is a social phenomenon. One must place himself 
in a certain social locus in order to think of himself as an individual with 
aims and interests separate from those of other people; and this implies 
custom and training, all of which are social in their nature. 


We live in a civilization. We partake of a certain type of cul- 
ture which no single individual has created. This culture consists of 
habits that have been taught each of us by many individuals, both 


178 


dead and alive. And so co-operative are these cultural elements that 
no single individual can ever hope to know or grasp all the material 
which makes up the culture of his people. Think what it would 
mean for any one to know thoroughly a single one of our modern 
sciences. Let us take psychology as an illustration. It is doubtful 
if any individual can to-day know all about psychology. Wundt and 
Stanley Hall attempted to do this, but encyclopedic as their knowledge 
was, they still left out much. One man knows a great deal about 
experimental psychology; another about the psychology of industry ; 
another about mental testing; another has much knowledge of social 
psychology, and another specializes in psychopathology. There are 
certain points of view and methods common to all psychologists, but 
even here there may be no unanimity, so that this science like all 
sciences may be regarded as a co-operative affair. And when we 
realize how many sciences, arts, historical facts, customs, manners, 
religious beliefs, go to make up our culture, we see that from one 
point of view this culture may be said to extend beyond the mental 
life of any individual. It is, from this point of view, impersonal and 
collective, and it is also mental in its nature. 


But this is not to say that these various cultural elements sum 
themselves up into a “social mind.” Not a single value or cultural 
fact, after all, has existence except when it is realized in the experi- 
ence of somebody somewhere. So when we say that a culture is a co- 
operative affair, we are really saying that many individuals, with 
interests which are more or less alike and yet with different kinds 
of experience, are working together to make their community a going 
concern. Now popular thinking conceives of this going concern not 
as a way in which individuals adapt themselves to one another, but 
as a “not-self,’ a thing to which all individuals alike must adapt 
themselves. It is then held that society has certain rights which are 
opposed to individual interests and rights; that society consists of 
something somewhere, which may be to blame for certain individual 
failures, or which owes individuals certain things, and to which the 
individual in turn has certain obligations. 


It is held, therefore, that this larger individual, “society,” has 
certain needs and mental traits just as the individual has them. 
There is a psychological reason why men should conceive of their 
social relationships as super-personal beings. A child grows up in 
the family circle under the protection of father and mother. The 
actions of these parents constitute the orbit in which he is born and 
in which he moves for many years. They protect the child, supply 
his needs and to them he learns to give obedience. Now it is natural 
that when the child grows to the age of adolescence he should enter a 
larger world of social relationships. Yet we all tend to meet new 
situations in habitual ways, so far as possible. The adolescent youth, 
accustomed to the protection and filial attitude which constituted his 
relations to his parents, would make himself at home in his other 
social environment by conceiving of that environment so far as pos- 
sible in terms of his relations to his parents. Hence, society is a sort 
of family, and society is also a kind of parent. 


179 


Men always take a filial attitude toward the group to which they 
belong. Thus the church is the ‘ Mother ” Church; the nation is the 
“Father ” Land; and in the personification of the group or society, 
therefore, it is possible for us as students of psychology to discover 
latent parent images. This personification of the group is a fiction, 
the function of which is to help individuals adjust themselves to one 
another by all adjusting to the image of an imaginary parent. 


The popular attitude has been given some encouragement by 
scholars. We need not dwell upon the way in which the theologians 
have rationalized and elaborated these parent images. A scholar as 
far from the theological point of view as Herbert Spencer may be 
said to have lent support to this popular notion. Spencer, in his 
“ Principles of Sociology,” has much to say about the organic concep- 
tion of society. A social body he conceived of as having a life of its own 
analogous to that of an individual organism. Just as the individual 
organism is composed of many cells, each of which may be thought 
of as a separate living being, so society may be made up of many in- 
dividuals each of whom may be thought of as a cell in the social body. 
And just as the cells in the body may be grouped into special organs 
the function of which is to serve the whole, so the principle of differ- 
entiation and of specialization of function causes certain groups or 
classes of individuals to work in a like manner for the general social 


welfare. 


Now Spencer was interested in applying the doctrine of evolu- 
tion to social science. He wished to show that our religious beliefs, 
our sacred institutions, our moral codes and so forth, were all of 
strictly natural origin. The easiest way to do this was, therefore, to 
make use of a metaphor according to which social progress could be 
likened to the growth of an individual organism. Hence, the develop- 
ment of societies, like that of living bodies, is a process, not of addition 
from without, but of self-unfolding. The social body is hence as real 
as any body and may have survival interests which are opposed to 
those of any particular individual. The social body also determines 
what this individual shall be. The individual living in one social 
body may be very different from the same person living in another. 


This is a convenient metaphor. But it is only a figure of speech 
and, in some ways, it is an unfortunate figure of speech. I am not 
sure how far Spencer meant this analogy to be taken literally. Cer- 
tainly he was unable to use this organic conception of society con- 
sistently. According to Spencer’s doctrine of evolution, an organism 
is most highly evolved when the parts of it are most thoroughly in- 
tegrated into a whole. Thus, structurally the nervous system of man 
is more highly evolved than that of a lobster, because the nerve cells 
are more completely organized into a single system. Functionally, 
the cells in the process of evolution gave up to the organism as a 
whole much of their original capacity. The simple living cell may 
perform all the functions of movement, reaction to stimuli, nutrition 
and reproduction. But in the highly evolved organism the various 
cells lose much of their original capacity, some cells performing some 


180 


of these functions and others others. Thus biologically speaking a 
highly evolved organism exists when the parts become most auto- 
matically the slaves of the whole. 


Now in this sense primitive society would be more highly evolved 
than modern society, for in a primitive society, individual behavior in 
nearly all respects is completely controlled by custom and taboo. As 
societies evolve, men outgrow to some degree this automatic social con- 
trol. Reason is substituted for blind custom and habit. An individual 
ceases to be merely a member of his tribe and comes to live to some ex- 
tent on his own account. Herbert Spencer was a violent individualist. 
He feared the present tendency toward greater social control. He spoke 
of it as the “coming slavery.” It is hard to reconcile all this with 
Spencer’s organic conception of society. Therefore, he was obliged 
to speak of the social organism as a “discrete” organism to distin- 
guish it from “concrete” organisms. In concrete organisms the 
various cells are in immediate contact. They have to stay put. They 
cannot emigrate or have ambitions to rise to a higher social position 
in the body. Neither do they have any voice in the government of 
the whole. All living organisms are concrete. What is a “ discrete”’ 
organism? Whoever saw one? In fact a “discrete organism” is a 
contradiction in terms. It simply means an organism which is not 
an organism. 


Now the curious fact is that much social psychology has rather 
uncritically followed Herbert Spencer in his organic conception of 
society. Just, therefore, as there is a social body opposed to the 
individual body, so psychologists, who think of body and mind as two 
things, like to believe that there is a social mind opposed to the indi- 
vidual mind. Ordinary psychology is said to be the study of the 
individual mind, but social psychology is the study of the social mind. 
Now, how is the social mind, as a mind which belongs to everybody 
and to nobody, to be studied? Here is where the social psychologist 
makes it very easy for himself. All he has to do is to sit in his study 
and to imagine an individual endowed with certain mental traits, 
consciousness, instincts, habits and so forth, then project these traits, 
magnified upon a social screen, very much as a motion picture 
operator projects the pictures on a screen. Thus the psychologist 
may very conveniently psychologize about society while sitting in his 
projection box. He does not need to go out and learn how people 
behave. All he has to do is to magnify the pictures in his head, 
When he is done we have a rather useless book in which all sorts 
of imaginary social traits labeled with names drawn from individual 
pyschology are to be found. We get no new information about 
people. In fact, social psychology of this sort has nothing whatever 
to do with things that are really happening. 


Thus the European social philosopher, Durkheim, is quoted by 
Perry as saying,’ “If there is to be any morality or system of duties 
and obligations, society must be a moral person, qualitatively dis- 
tinct from the individual persons which it comprises.” Espinas has 
been quoted as saying, “Ideas and traditions mingle and thus a 
process of communication between soul and soul is brought about 


181 
which results in a real fusion of multiple consciousness in one soul.” 
The group acts and feels differently from the way in which any of 
its members feel and act. It is a higher spiritual entity, superior to 
anybody. It is a miracle by which Mr. Everybody becomes wiser 
than Anybody. It is a ghost made up of the impersonal and abstract 


idea of everybody when every concrete person is thought away. 
What miracles thought may achieve! 


All this sounds very much like the teachings of those pseudo- 
psychological cults which spell ‘ Sub-conscious Mind ” with a capital 
S and M and regard it as a divine being which is one and the same 
in all; supplying all our needs and wiping away all our tears, if only 
we can give up our personal reason and trust ourselves to its benef- 
icence. I once heard a “psychologist” in a white frock-coat give a 
very inspiring address on this subject to a theatre packed with eager 
women auditors. 


If one wishes to believe this sort of thing, as a social philosophy, 
why not consult sources where at least such mysticism has the ap- 
pearance of intellectual respectability. There is, for instance, Hegel, 
with his concept of the State as the self-unfolding idea. More scien- 
tific than the view which I have just suggested, yet still somehow 
clinging to the worship of the group mind, is the book “The New 
State,” by Miss Mary Follet. She holds that man is a mere point in 
the whole process rather than a mind in that process. ‘“ Individual- 
ism is an abstraction.” “ The individual is one who is being created 
by society, his daily breath drawn from society, his life lived for so- 
city.” “When we recognize society as self-unfolding, self-unifying 
activity, we shall hold ourselves open to its influence, letting the 
light stream into us.” One suspects that here is a type of Hegelian 
idealism of the State, or at least of Comptian “ religion of humanity.” 


Ginsberg, the English social psychologist, has ably criticised 
this point of view, holding that it arises out of the confusion of 
psychic processes with their content of what is experienced. The 
contents which is the object we think about, may be said to be 
shared; that is, various people may in their thinking mean the same 
thing. But this sharing of objects is not a sharing of mental processes 
which, as James showed, are always unique and personal. Ginsberg 
further says that if there is a group mind, then this group mind 
should know its own mind. “Are societies conscious of themselves? 
If they are, why is it so difficult to determine what the social mind 
thinks?”’ And I might further add, why is it so difficult to get any 
substantial agreement or uniformly intelligent thinking concerning 
any important social theme? 


The Psychological Theory of the Group Mind. 


Perhaps the most important statement of the case for the ex- 
istence of the group mind in recent years is that of Prof. William 
McDougall, whose book, “ The Group Mind,” written in 1920, attracted 
wide-spread attention. Prof. McDougall, now professor of psychology 
in Harvard University, and doubtless the best known social psycholog- 
ist writing in the English language, is critical of the concept of the 


182 


group mind as it is used by older psychologists. As I understand 
him, he is opposed to the idealistic notion of a collective mind. He 
says, “Some writers have assumed the reality of what is called the 
collective consciousness of society, meaning thereby a unitary con- 
sciousness of society over and above that of the individuals com- 
prised within it.” 


McDougall flatly rejects this view. But as I see it, he rejects it 
only to bring it back in very much the same form. He maintains 
that “Society when it enjoys a long life and becomes highly organ- 
ized acquires a structure and qualities which are largely independent 
of the qualities of individuals who enter into its composition and take 
part for a brief time in its life. And further, McDougall would after 
all appear to endow this social organism with precisely that collective 
consciousness or mind of its own which he has rejected. He says, 
“We may fairly define a mind as an organized system of mental or 
purposive forces.” 


He says, “ Under any given circumstances, the actions of the so- 
ciety are or may be very different from the mere sum of the actions 
with which its several members would react to the situations in the 
absence of the system of relations which render them a society. 

: Does the system so created think and will and feel and act? 
My answer as set out in the following pages is that it does all of these 
things.) 0). wi Ttyis\ not) because’ minds have) much in commen 
with one another that I speak of the collective mind, but because the 
group as such is more than the sum of the individuals.” 


Perhaps our author here means to say that the group mind is 
not a transcendental principle, but is something which exists in indi- 
vidual minds simultaneously along with their personal consciousness, 
yet somewhat transcends that personal consciousness. However, I 
cannot see wherein this view differs materially from that of Durkheim 
or Miss Follet. Surely McDougall does not mean to say that this 
organized system of mental or purposive forces, in other words, the 
customs, traditions and values of civilization, is the same thing in all 
the individuals who compose a given group. For individuals in 
their social consciousness, must vary according to their personal ex- 
perience. The group mind as a whole must be nothing more than the 
total result of the co-operation of many kinds of men. Yet, this is 
just what McDougall denies. The group mind is “ more than the sum 
total of the individuals which compose it.” He says that minds com- 
plement one another in society, but as Ginsberg observes, it does not 
follow from this that the system which results is another mind any 
more than that a house made of many bricks should be itself an 
enormous brick. 


McDougall, like other believers in the group mind, seems to 
believe that the social mind is superior to any individual mind. It 
is true that conclusions which are reached as a result of the delibera- 
tions of many intelligent persons in conference may be wiser than the 
conclusions that any one of them would reach. But this is only to 
say that individuals may, on occasion, learn from one another. I 
belong to a club in which there are men with various types of pro- 


183 


fessional training. One man is a professor of law in a nearby uni- 
versity. Another is an able historian. Two are teachers of philosophy. 
One is an anthropologist. Several are sociologists. And there are a 
number of psychologists, each with a point of view all his own. 
Now undoubtedly the discussions of this group are enlightning to all 
its members, because each is trained to notice a special aspect of the 
subject under discussion. Yet, each can contribute to the knowledge 
of all the rest some bit of information which probably the others do 
not possess. The total result is mutual gain in understanding. But 
surely the total effect of our discussions is to be found in the better 
insight which each one of us thereby acquires. No one would believe 
that we are through such discussions creating an independent system 
of “ mental or purposive forces”? which has a life and an existence of 
itsown. We have not achieved a new mind outside ourselves; neither 
have our several consciousnesses fused and run together into a group 
mind. After all, our thinking is still individual and each of us receives 
from the others only such modifications as he can assimilate to his 
own thinking. What is not assimilated, what each one carries away 
in the secret of his own mind, is absolutely separate and plural. Taken 
together we might be said to have more information than anyone of 
us possesses. But this does not mean that we possess a collective con- 
sciousness which 1s wiser than all of us put together. . 


If I am correct about the case just mentioned the same must hold 
true throughout our social relationships generally. To say that the 
group mind is superior to the mind of the wisest man is sheer non- 
sense. Bernard Shaw says that public opinion is always wrong and 
many would agree with him. If I select from my audience the tallest 
man in the room and then stand up beside him a number of shorter 
men, I do not get an increase in height in this way. There is still 
nobody taller than the tallest man. If we should select the most 
beautiful woman, and then group about her a number of less beautiful 
women, we do not make her more beautiful thereby, nor have we 
added anything more beautiful than she is. There is still nothing 
more beautiful before us than the face of the most beautiful woman. 
And if we select the wisest man and then surround him with a group 
of foolish men, still there is no more wisdom than there is in the head 
of the wisest man. There is no more wisdom in society than there is 
in the wisest people and they themselves would be just as wise if 
their counsel did not have to be compromised by the folly of the less 
wise. 


This notion that the mass has some magical wisdom in itself just 
because it is the mass, is a modern superstition. It is a phase of our 
democratic idealism of the brute force of numbers. Public opinion 
certainly does not often represent the thought of the best minds. 
Note, for example, our newspapers. I think it may truthfully be said, 
allowances made for special cases, that the circulation of our great 
newspapers is in direct proportion to their vulgarity, sensationalism 
and stupidity. 


Criticism of the Concept of the Group Mind. 


Now let us examine this concept ef the group mind more closely. 
Is it possible that there is such a collective consciousness, or do we 


184 


mean by the term merely the fact that in any community a large num- 
ber of persons are so similarly modified by tradition and environment 
that their thinking regarding many subjects is more or less alike? 
What do we mean by the term “mind?” We have seen that the 
behaviorists are very critical of this word, and I think rightly so, 
because most psychologists who use it, even in regard to individuals, 
conceive of mind as an invisible entity which is separate and distinct 
from the body. We have already seen that this concept is incorrect; 
that by the term mind we really mean certain ways of behavior, so 
that at best the group mind could only mean certain aspects of social 
behavior. 


Even on the assumption of conventional psychology that mind 
consists of certain ideas, feelings and acts of the will, it is hard to see 
how anybody could believe that there is a social mind. To say this 
would be to say that there are collective and impersonal ideas. Now 
we know from James that there are no such ideas and that the stream of 
thought is always personal. Thought is dependent upon a nervous 
process. The word thought is the past participle of the verb to think. 
And just as there can be no running unless some one runs, so there 
can be no thought outside the process of thinking. A thought exists 
only where the thinking goes on. For any thought there must be 
a head thinking. Thoughts exist in heads. There can be no collec- 
tive thought unless there is a collective head to do thinking. Our 
several personal thoughts do not sum themselves up into a collective 
thought any more than our various personal sensations sum them- 
selves up into a complex feeling. Thoughts are never compounds. 
Each thought is a single, unique, pulse of consciousness. 


The same is true of our feelings. We have already seen that 
every feeling is a sensation of a change which goes on in our own 
body. The idea that there can be an impersonal feeling or a disem- 
bodied feeling which can be felt by everybody or nobody is absurd. 
We might say the same of the will, Many persons may entertain a 
purpose about a certain object and each man’s purpose may be like 
that of the others. But this is not to say that their wills fuse into one 
will. The concept of the group mind, as I have elsewhere said,* is 
either mysticism or else pure tautology. 


The concept of the group-mind would seem to be at best only 
an analogy. If we try to conceive of any individual as distinct from 
the group in which he lives, we notice that there are certain similari- 
ties between his behavior and that of the other members of his group. 
But the likeness between the members of a group is erroneously con- 
ceived of as a likeness between the individual and the group as a whole. 
And as the behavior of each individual is greatly modified by his 
contacts with other individuals, it is possible to think of much of the 
mental life of the individual as a social product. The group as such 
must then have certain mental qualities. So the student proceeds to 
psychologize, pointing out the similarities of the group to the 
individual. 


* Journal of Abnormal Psyehology and Social Psychology, Oct.-Deec., 1923. 


185 


Now this group mind either means that there is a psychological 
entity which is exclusive of individual psyches and yet includes them, 
or it means that for certain purposes individual differences may be 
ignored and we may speak of collective behavior as the behavior of 
the collectivity. In the first case, the group mind is a mystical con- 
cept, and in the second it is tautological. 


Individual minds do not sum themselves up into a collective mind 
which is different from any other mind. As there are no impersonal 
ideas or permanently existing ideas, there can be no common con- 
sciousness. My thought may be about my neighbor and his about me, 
but taken together there is no sharing of thoughts or mingling of sub- 
jects and objects. My thought may be like my neighbor’s, also my be- 
havior, but similarity is not identity. What is shared in human association 
is the objective situation which the thought or behavior is about, not 
the mental activity itself. There is no more reason for believing ina 
collective mind than for believing in a collective stomach. The con- 
cept arises through the intellectualist habit of ascribing independent 
existence to the mere fact that certain objects are alike in certain 
respects. The philosopher abstracts from the various objects that 
attribute in which they are alike, thinks of it as separate from the 
objects in which it inheres, and then in good Platonic fashion sticks 
it up behind them as if it were some higher kind of being. 


In the other sense the concept of the group mind is mere tau- 
tology. Of course, there is much likeness between the individual and 
his group for the reason that each individual is in ceratin respects like 
his fellows, and especially so when they have together acquired cer- 
tain similar habits of mutual adjustment. In the psychological sense, 
the group is an objective situation which stimulates certain responses 
and to which certain adjustments are made, but the objective situation 
as such has no mind or psychology of its own. The mind and the 
psychology ascribed to the group really belong to the several indi- 
viduals in it, each of whom is a subject to himself and an object for 
the experience of the others. Thus the psychologist may if he wishes 
call attention to the mental similarities of the individuals within the 
group, comparing in turn the behavior of each imaginary individual 
with that of the rest. He may speak of the similarity of behavior as 
a “group mind,” but it is difficult to see how such a concept will aid 
him in discovering the motives which impel men to this or that form 
of mutual adjustment. Neither does the concept of the group mind 
aid us in distinguishing the crowd from the normally social. Since 
by hypothesis the crowd must have its own group mind, a mind 
therefore within a larger group mind, we should still have the prob- 
lem of the likenesses and differences of these two “ minds,” and of the 
relation of each to the mind of the individual. 


Let us note some of the groups to which men are in the habit of 
ascribing this collective mind. First, there is society as a whole. What 
do we mean by society as a whole? Do we mean humanity in general? 
If we do, then what sort of unanimity or collective consciousness can we 
ascribe to the whole race? No one can conceive of the human race as 
such. It is a pure “ universal judgment” and our ideas of it are always 
essentially symbolic. 


186 


Do we mean by society, then, organized society? And what, pray, 
is organized society? Who is in it and who is out of it? Are 
Mohammedans and Zulus and criminals and idiots a part of organized 
society? Even if by the concept “organized society’ we mean our 
own society, made up of normal people, is it not true that much of 
our behavior, much of that which goes to make up the sum total of 
experience and knowledge of the world, is quite unorganized? Does 
not the organization of society consist primarily in a rather wide- 
spread agreement as to how we shall behave about such things as 
sex, property and respect for human life? 


The same may be said of class. We hear much today about class- 
consciousness. But it is very difficult to make a clear definition of 
class. There is much talk to-day about “ the proletariat.” But I doubt 
if anybody can define the proletariat satisfactorily, in such a way as to 
make a clear-cut distinction among men. The best we can say is 
that in general a large number of persons have a similar relationship 
toward employing capital and that this relationship, when they be- 
come aware of it, gives them certain objectives toward which they 
can all work. But this is not to say that they have a common mind. 


We can say the same thing of a nation. I have heard many men 
try to define what they mean by the principle of nationality. Neither 
race, nor language, nor the occupation of a definite political area seems 
to be adequate. It is a disputed point whether nationality could be 
ascribed to Jews, Irish-Americans, or other “ nationals ” who, though 
they have a keen sense that they are a separate people with certain 
traditions which they all share, nevertheless have no piece of earth on 
which they can act as a sovereign political group. And in America, 
if we are to listen to some of our super-patriots, nationalism is a thing 
which even the native-born possess only in degree. The elect alone 
have it 100%. Certainly when we think of all the factions and differ- 
ences and nationals existing in the population of this country, we 
must say that, beyond certain gestures and words, in which conformity 
may be secured, nationality has comparatively little existence. If 
there is an American mind as such, I as a social student have never 
been able to discover it, though I have seen many persons who pre- 
sume to speak in its name. I think they were, for the most part, 
speaking for themselves. This is not to say that nationhood is not a 
very great fact among us. But it is to say that it is not a fact separate 
and distinct and independent of our several mentalities. As a matter 
of fact, society in any country or civilization at large is nothing other 
than the sum total of our habits of behaving together. 


There are further considerations concerning the group mind to 
which I wish to call attention. I wish to point out the psychology of 
the concept itself. As I have suggested above, this concept is value- 
less in social science, for it gives us no criterion by which we may 
judge which forms of social behavior are desirable and which are 
undesirable. If all groups and all movements are equal in mind, we 
may have here a fact which would be interesting to some people, but 
not to the social scientist. What does it amount to in the way of 
enabling us to say which forms of social behavior should be encour- 


187 


aged and which ones discouraged? Again, the group mind does not 
give us any adequate account of what it is that holds society together. 
Society is really made up of many factors of mutual adjustment. We 
should put our emphasis upon these forms of adjustment, criticize and 
analyze them, and value them. We are not helped to do this nor are 
we led to any consideration of concrete situations when we hypostasize 
all these adjustments as if they constituted a given and invisible entity. 


The concept of the group mind grows out of the desire to 
treat descriptive ideas as if they were ontological or even causal. 
What I mean is, that certain ways of behaving together become 
stereotyped as habits and are taught by one generation to the next. 
The sum total of these habits is what we mean by the social order. 
Now the believer in the group mind does not see that the social order 
is simply a descriptive term, signifying such habits, but thinks of it as 
a mysterious psychic cause of the habits. 


The Idea of the Group Mind 1s Harmful. 


Again, the concept of the group mind leads us to forget, when 
discussing the evils of the social environment, that we are each one of 
us environment as well as the individual who must adjust himself to 
the environment. We say that the individual is a product of his 
environment. Yet that same individual is a part of his neighbor’s 
environment. To improve the environment, therefore, we must im- 
prove ourselves. Yet we all have a habit of speaking of the social 
environment as if we were not part of it. This leads us to the notion 
that we may improve society by tampering with some mysterious 
thing which is not ourselves. To improve society we must improve 
our own habits. We live in a day, however, in which it is fashionable 
to try to improve society by legal regulation of the group as a whole. 
We do not wait until we may persuade and convince; we do not even 
wait until we have ourselves formed desirable habits. We seek by 
legislative machinery to force reforms upon our neighbors, without 
their consent, oftentimes without any intention of obeying such legis- 
lative decrees ourselves. All this is a part of the impatience of the 
modern man. It also shows his superstitious belief that if by bullying 
and lobbying he can have his own bigotry enacted into law, such 
bigotry becomes thereby, not his partisan willfulness, but somehow 
an expression of the “ social will.” 


Finally, the idea of the group mind is a mischievous idea. It is a 
survival of the old early nineteenth century dogma that “ Society is 
God.” If this were merely a way of worshipping ourselves, it would 
be pardonable. But it is not. It is the worship of an empty abstrac- 
tion. For the concept of society so held is one from which all concrete 
persons are thought away. Of all the gods that men have wor- 
shipped I know none so barren, so lacking in grace and omniscience. 
This idolatry results simply in the deification of anything that happens 
to be popular at the moment. It is a way in which crowds seek to make 
their will supreme and to gain sanctities for their partisan purposes. 

The worst thing about this new god is that he has priests. Those 


who succeed in controlling the social machinery, who can most easily 
give expression to the vulgar will may justify themselves in whatever 


188 


they do, on the ground that they are the agents of society. Hence, the 
mass, the undifferentiated man, is idealized. Distinctions of worth 
among men tend to be minimized. Social influence passes from people 
as persons to The People as mass. Truth is no longer a prime consid- 
eration. Everything tends to be translated into those forms of propa- 
ganda which will appeal to the greatest number; and, as appeal is 
made to mere numbers, mediocrity which now must be convinced, and 
now holds the balance of power, in all things, sets the standards of 
value in civilization. 


The result is enforced conformity in matters of taste and opinion, 
matters which are properly the subject of private judgment. It is this 
sort of belief, I think, which makes possible much of the intolerance 
so characteristic of these post-war days. 


Progress is created in societies only by unique individuals. Men must 
have the right to challenge basic popular assumptions. That society is 
most progressive in which variation is permitted. Of course, we must 
adjust ourselves to one another and there must be a general agreement 
about certain things, but to have really a community as Dewey says, such 
agreement must be our deliberate judgment. There must be assent. 


The fact that the mass believes certain ideas does not in any 
sense make them true. In fact, the presumption is against them.. 
Stupidity and vulgarity always tend to bolster themselves up with a 
show of authority, to resort to coercion, to speak with finality, to 
impose mediocre dilemmas upon all and to invent fictions which would 
make mediocrity appear to be supernal. The “group mind” is such a 
fiction. Do not put too much faith in commonly accepted opinion. 
This is social stagnation. Do not make institutions ends in them- 
selves. They are but instruments for mutual adjustment. Do not 
let any group make itself exempt from sane criticism. For this is in- 
tellectual suicide. There is no thinking in the world that does not 
take place in the individual’s brains. There are no minds but personal 
minds, no over-mind in society which can relieve us individually of 
intellectual responsibility. There are no goods which are good for 
no one in particular; no truths which cannot and should not be called 
to justify themselves at the bar of some individual judgment; no wis- 
dom which is greater than that attained by the wisest. The right to 
private judgment and the duty of it cannot be obscured by any wor- 
ship of the group as such. The path of freedom for every man, as 
well as his greatest opportunity for social service, is to learn to think 
clearly, calmly, courageously, alone. 


LECTURE XIV 
The Psychology of Propaganda and Public Opinion. 





THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PROPAGANDA AND 
PUBLIC OPINION. 


HAT do we mean by public opinion? Whose opinion is it? What 

is the public? Much that I said in the lecture about the group 

mind applies here. You will remember that I said there is no such a 

thing as a group mind or collective consciousness which exists inde- 

pendently of the persons who constitute a group. There are only individ- 

uals and individual opinions. Whatever the public is, therefore, it cannot 

be a group mind in the sense that the term is popularly used. Many people 

speak of the public as if it were a mysterious entity which held opinions 
different from the opinions of any person. 


In fact, the word “public” is really an adjective used as a noun. 
“Public”? is the opposite of “private.” It simply characterises certain 
phases of the behavior and thinking of persons. As Walter Lippmann 
has shown, consultations with one’s physician, the relations of lawyer 
and client, confessions to a priest or conversations between the members 
of a family are generally considered to be private matters; by which 
we mean that they are not the business of unknown persons. Public 
affairs are those to which we admit, as it were, a vast number of people. 
They are those things which are in a sense on the street. What I say 
in this lecture is public. It is given in a public meeting. It is published. 
But if I write a letter to my mother, that is private. 


There would seem to be a difference between these two types of activi- 
ties in which I as an individual am engaged. Of course, the public 
activities are my activities as truly as are the private ones. Yet I feel 
that in the things which I consider my own personal private affair, I am 
more truly myself than in the public activities. In a sense everyone 
performs these two types of behavior. Privately we may have an opinion 
about certain people. Publicly, we should be cautious, perhaps, in express- 
ing such an opinion, if uncomplimentary, even though we were convinced 
it was true. That is, as a private person I have to answer to my con- 
science and must face the results of my behavior and experience. On my 
public side I must keep up appearances, have a record, keep that record 
straight. I am accountable to a great many persons who cannot know my 
experience and behavior as I know it privately. 


On the public side of my nature I find myself trying to think of 
myself as I imagine other people think of me. As public we pay deference 
to beliefs and ideas which run current among people of our time without 
stopping to criticize them. We are more concerned with being like our 
neighbors than with being different from them. So we may say that the 
difference between the public and the private in us is really the difference 
between two ways of thinking about ourselves. When we think of our- 
selves and other people as part of an unknown multitude or mass, we 
are thinking of ourselves as public. When we think of ourselves in our 
concrete human relationships, we are thinking of ourselves as private 
persons. Think of humanity in the concrete and you think of individuals. 
Think of humanity in the abstract, and you think of the public. 


[191] 


192 


It is on the side of the public self in us that we have membership in 
the various groups to which we belong. Each of these groups considers 
only part of our nature. It is interested only in certain aspects of our 
behavior and thought. It abstracts. Thus there is a reading public, an 
eating public, a riding public, and so forth. The sum-total of these 
so-called publics, we may speak of as “the public.” But you can see 
that “the public” is not the same as the self of any of us. It is smaller 
rather than larger, since the life of everyone of us contains more than 
is to be found in the sum-total of the various interests about which the 
groups to which we belong are organized. Therefore, the public in us 
is a pinching down of our real self, a standardizing of various aspects 
of our nature. In public we are always on parade, as it were. We 
emphasise those things in which men are similar and tend to ignore those 
in which they are unique. The public then is not a thing apart from 
us; it is simply one way of looking at people, a way in which we ignore 
their uniqueness. The public is, therefore, the abstract idea of everyone 
with all concrete individuals thought away. The public is everybody and 
nobody, since it does not represent the real self of anyone. It is one 
of those fictions which we invent about ourselves, a fiction which may 
be either useful or harmful. 


And now what is public opinion? Obviously it cannot be the opinion 
of some impersonal thing known as public. Public opinion consists of 
that opinion which goes along with the public-self of each of us. It is the 
opinion we try to hold when we are “on parade.” It consists of those 
beliefs which we accept second-hand, which we strive to share with an 
undifferentiated number of unknown persons, beliefs we imagine such 
persons would approve. It consists of those ideas which we try to think 
because we imagine our neighbors are thinking them, when, as a matter 
of fact, our neighbors are trying to think the same ideas, because they 
imagine we are trying to think them. 


Perhaps I can illustrate what I mean. When I was a college student 
I knew two men. One was a clergyman and the other the superintendent 
of the Sunday School in this clergyman’s church. By and by the 
clergyman took me into his confidence, telling me that he did not believe 
certain articles of his creed but could not bring himself to challenge these 
dogmas openly because he was afraid he would deeply shock the good 
man who for fifteen years had been superintendent of his Sunday School 
and had always shown such implicit faith and devotion. A few years 
later I came somehow to be closely associated with this superintendent. 
By this time the clergyman had been called elsewhere. We were discussing 
him one day when the superintendent said to me, “ He was such a good 
man; he had such simple faith. I never did believe his dogmas, but for 
years I refrained from discussing these matters with him for fear that 
I might give him pain.”’ Here were two men who were in closest contact 
for fifteen years and neither knew that the other was a liberal. Liberalism 
in each case was the private judgment of these men. The creed was 
their public opinion. 


I am inclined to think that in most cases our private judgments are 
sounder and more honest than our public opinion. When we in our 
thinking defer to the imagined judgment of the multitude we must remem- 


193 


ber that we are not deferring to people as they really are, for, as I have 
said, the public in us is a caricature of us. And so, public opinion is 
a caricature of the real opinion of everybody. 


We live in a time when the public in us tends to eat up the man. 
The enormous increase in the means of publicity, the standardization and 
mechanization of our modern world, all tend to depersonalize our thought 
of ourselves. In the dissemination of information the attempt must be 
made to strike at the average level of opinion. So the imaginary average, 
the mediocre type, becomes the standard in most public opinion. The mass 
is worshipped because it is many and powerful. “ The voice of the people 
is the voice of God.” Great organizations, each with its propaganda and 
partial interest in us, control our life and our thought. The State is 
interested in us only as “ citizens;” the newspapers, as “ circulation;” the 
corporation, as “‘ consumers.” 


Thus, in adapting ourselves to our present organized social world, 
there is a tendency to leave out something vital in the nature of each of us. 
Hence, the opinions which belong to and serve the interests of various 
standardized forms of human association are not our real opinions. 
I should say that our private judgment has to do with our own experience, 
with the opinions we have reached through criticism and analysis. Our 
public opinion has to do with those automatic forms of thought and 
behavior which are imposed upon us from without. When we exercise 
private judgment we are thinking with something inside our heads; when 
we give expression to public opinion we are thinking outside the head, 
as it were. 


Our public opinions are largely the result of economic and geographic 
accidents. They are made up of things we have been taught. They vary 
with changes of time and place. What public opinion holds to be true 
in one place or age, it may with the same implicit faith hold to be untrue 
in another place or age. Public opinion in persons of the older generation, 
especially Protestant Americans, is very Puritanical. Candid discussion 
of sex is taboo. The fiction is maintained that ignorance is “ purity.” 
There is a general attempt to keep up an appearance of innocence. What 
is “decent” and what is “indecent” is held to be a matter beyond 
dispute. Certain “moral’’ judgments are held to be self-evident. 


When I was chairman of the National Board of Review of Motion 
Pictures I had many occasions to see such public opinion at work. Certain 
people just could not be made to see that there might be any honest 
difference of opinion as to what is decent. Oftentimes very silly and 
childish notions were held to be the expression of eternal right. I recall 
one case on which the Board was severely criticised because it passed a 
picture which showed a lingerie shop in which a customer incidentally 
held up to view a woman’s silk under-garment. The persons who 
objected to this picture were quite sure that all who did not agree with 
them were deliberately “wicked people.’ Now such a public opinion 
is not based on private judgment. The moral world is full of the self- 
appointed guardians of infantile taboos who strive to turn the dilemmas 
of mediocrity into universal truths or catagorical imperatives. Public 
opinion of this nature is mere class opinion. It is not the result of 
private judgment. 


194 


Similarly there is a public opinion among certain business men with 
respect to organized labor which is not the result of private judgment. 
In the average Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, or advertising men’s 
organization, there is an amazing unanimity about the alleged aims and 
ideals of labor. The arguments used are always the same, if arguments 
they can be called. ‘“ Unions mean inefficiency.” “ Walking delegates 
are always calling unwilling and loyal workingmen out on strike.” “ Unions 
rob the honest working man of his divine right to work.” “ Organized 
labor is only another form of socialism and socialism means dividing up.” 
“You cannot change human nature.” It goes without saying that this 
piece of reasoning, though many persons may honestly think they are 
convinced by it, is not reasoning at all. It is not based upon evidence 
and its speciousness is perfectly obvious to any unprejudiced person. 


Likewise there is a class opinion current among certain liberals and 
radicals. ‘The question is often raised whether there is such a thing as 
“a working class psychology.” I suspect there is for a large number 
of people. There is a current belief that “labor produces all wealth;” 
that all persons who live without performing actual labor are ‘“ wicked,” 
deliberate exploiters who scheme day and night new and more diabolical 
measures for “ reducing the workers to slavery.” There is a notion that 
people may be divided into two great groups, the all-good and the all-bad; 
the capitalists belong to the latter group—notwithstanding the fact that 
few radicals perhaps would decline to belong to this group if they had the 
opportunity. This god-devil psychology is an “all-or-none”’ type of re- 
action and as such is not a matter of carefully scrutinized thinking. 


This same characteristic of class opinion is seen in politics. A catch- 
phrase will aways pass uncriticized. ‘“ Wall Street’ is the modern devil. 
Whenever the policies of the present Mayor of New York are criticized, 
we are told that he is being persecuted by the “interests.” These mysteri- 
ous interests are very wonderful beings. The latest “ public benefactors ” 
who would save the people from the machinations of the “ evil interests ”’ 
are concerned with certain history text-books used in our public schools. 
The long suffering public is warned against a deep, dark conspiracy. His- 
torians who honestly try to tell the facts about the American Revolution 
are “bought up” by the “interests”? in a plot to lure this innocent 
Kepublic back into the jaws of the British Lion. 


We had an excellent illustration of this type of opinion several years 
ago in New York. It will be remembered that the “ Gary School,” because 
the newspapers gave this name to the type of schools first established in 
Gary, Indiana, was called a “ steel trust school.’’ Men saw in it an attempt 
on the part of malefactors of great wealth to train up workingmen’s sons 
to be wage slaves. 


Likewise we should call attention to the nonsense that has for seven 
or eight years passed in this country as “Americanism.” Most of this sort 
of thing was at bottom an attempt to bully and insult foreigners and to 
justify such behavior by an appearance of patriotic devotion. The wildest 
and silliest rumors circulated among a credulous section of the population. 
Perhaps the climax of this type of public opinion was reached when the 
Attorney-General of the United States assured us that there would be a 
Bolshevist revolution on a certain May morning. 


195 


As public opinion is largely class opinion, so it is a matter frequently 
a geographical accident. In the South, public opinion is anti-negro and 
anti-alcohol; which does not mean that private opinion, however, is always 
quite so “anti.” In the Middle West public opinion is anti-Catholic, anti- 
Semitic, and anti-foreign. There is a psychological reason why public 
opinion is so often “against”? someone. It is made up very largely of 
prejudices, and prejudice is hostility to that which is strange. Such hos- 
tility is seized upon and rationalized by crowds as I have tried to show, 
in the study of the psychology of the crowd,* in order to justify the 
escape of certain tendencies to cruelty in our nature. Public opinion as 
I will show later in this lecture has the function of creating a pseudo-social 
environment in which anti-social behavior may be made to appear as 
devotion to moral principles. 


Crowd opinions, rumors and fictions become fixed. Crowd thinking 
tends to be at best rather banal and platitudinous, ungenerous and intem- 
perate, because it is necessarily the appeal to the mediocre majority. 
Such an appeal is almost always a low appeal when the man in the 
street holds the power that he does today. Even those more clever persons 
who write for this man, speak for him and presume to think for him, 
gain his good-will by flattering him in his ignorance and by encouraging 
him in his prejudices. Many of the things which motivate the average 
man publicly may be absolutely irrelevant. Not many years ago in 
Illinois a candidate for the office of United States Senator chose as the 
leading issue in his campaign the menace of the Mormon Church. Often 
an issue is still debated and people are bitterly divided concerning it long 
after itis dead. Thus in the South they were still fighting the Civil War 
in the late nineties. Fundamentalists are quarreling over 17th century 
ideas after a century and more of science has modified the thinking of 
practically all educated people. 


These persistent factors in public opinion are called by Walter Lipp- 
mann stereotypes. Most propaganda consists of such stereotypes. Stereo- 
types are not easily modified by new truths nor are they established by 
research and evidence in the first place. The popular ideas about prohibi- 
tion are stereotypes. Recently an excellent man visited me to solicit my 
aid in some research work he was doing for a group of Protestant 
Churches. He was commissioned to make a study of the psychological 
effects of the 18th amendment. I was obliged to decline because I knew 
that the truth on this subject was not what these churches wanted and 
that they would not publish our findings, if they happened to run counter 
to their own pre-conceived opinions. When deTocqueville visited America 
in the early part of the 19th century, he was much impressed with this 
stereotyping of American public opinion. He said: 


“America is therefore a free country in which, lest anybody be hurt 
by your remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private individuals, 
of the State, or the citizens, or the authorities, or public or private under- 
takings, in short of anything at all, except perhaps the climate and the 
soil, and even then Americans will be found ready to defend both as if they 
had concurred in producing them.” 


*“ The Behavior of Crowds,” Harper & Bros. 


196 


“The American submits without a murmur to the authority of the 
pettiest magistrate. This truth prevails even in the trivial details of 
national life. An American cannot converse—he speaks to you as if 
he were addressing a meeting. If an American were condemned to 
confine himself to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one-half of 
his existence; his wretchedness would be unbearable. 


“T know of no country in which there is so little independence of 
mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In America the 
majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion. Within 
these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if 
he goes beyond them. Not that he is in danger of an auto-da-fe, but 
he is exposed to continued obloquy and persecution. His political career 
is closed for ever. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, 
is refused him. Those who think like him have not the courage to speak 
out and abandon him to silence. He yields at length, overcome by the 
daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence as if he 
felt remorse for having spoken the truth.” 


This was many years ago, but the situation meanwhile has become 
much worse. There are many such stereotypes among us today,—the idea 
that America is the land of the free; that democracy means liberty ; that the 
poorest among us has equal opportunity with the most favored; that 
progress is inevitable; that if you are not an optimist you are a traitor; 
that big cities are immoral; that what we get in the public schools is 
education; that the Republican party is a Grand Old Party. It is a 
regrettable fact that most of the councils of democracy consist in the 
repetition of such phrases. There is in this free land very little expression 
of genuine personal opinion concerning matters moral, religious, political. 
Such phrases as are repeated carry a certain stereotyped emotional signi- 
ficance but have helped us very little in solving the problems of our 
common life. 


The Value of Public Opinion. 


Are we therefore to assume that public opinion has no value? I think 
such an assumption would be unwarranted, for, although public opinion is 
nobody’s opinon and although in most cases it is erroneous, yet the stereo- 
types of which I have spoken could under certain conditions be made to 
serve important social ends. The regularity and order of human affairs 
is to a great extent the result of the fact that men accept certain opinions 
second-hand. They learn to respect ideas which they do not wholly under- 
stand. Certain mental habits are formed which result in commonly 
accepted beliefs. But, we should strive to bring it about that these beliefs 
are true, for their effect in social behavior is something we can not escape. 
But, it is essential that there should be some common belief among men 
and perhaps even false beliefs are better than none at all. 


If all men were wise, if they were capable of forming private judg- 
ments of such a nature that they could co-operate advantageously with one 
another, public opinion would be unnecessary. But even the wisest of 
men have not the time nor the information to scrutinize all human ways 
or to settle for themselves all questions of faith. In fact, even the most 
critical and skeptical of men accepts a large portion of his opinions second- 
hand. Any social order at all rests upon such things as the commonly 


197 


accepted respect for property, for human life, for law, and so forth. The 
beliefs upon which these respects rest may be very erroneous, yet in advance 
of correct opinion it is desirable that there be fairly wide-spread assent. 


Many of the assumptions upon which our present social order rests 
will hardly stand the test of logical criticism. And our present social 
system is certainly anything but an adequate and just one. But some 
order is better than none. Many persons may not believe this—though 
we had a little hint of what may happen when the usual social regulation 
is absent, in the behavior of many persons in Boston during the police 
strike. 


I recently met a man who had gone through the Great War as a Hun- 
garian soldier. He had suffered very much from privation; had been 
under fire many times; in fact, had experienced all the horrors of war. 
He had also been in Hungary during the brief period of the dictatorship 
of Bela Kun. He told me that he would rather go through the entire 
war again than live three days in the midst of the chaos which followed that 
breakdown of social order in his country after the war. 


Certainly there are many really valuable things in our society the 
survival of which depends upon the fact that there is a public opinion 
in their favor, even though there may not be a general and correct under- 
standing of them. For instance, there is Science. ‘There is a public 
opinion in favor of science. And science is possible only because people 
who are not scientists still believe that science is a good thing and allow 
it to proceed notwithstanding the fact that they have not mastered its 
technique and do not understand very well its general principles. I sup- 
pose most people believe that the earth is round and that it moves about 
the sun. There is a general acceptance of the doctrine of evolution, the 
law of gravitation, the bacteriological explanation of infectious diseases, 
the atomic theory, and so on. Yet I doubt if more than a very small por- 
tion of the population could give an intelligible account of the ground upon 
which these beliefs are founded. In fact, the public acceptance of science 
is an act of faith just as truly as belief in the Church or the Bible was in 
medieval times. 


Even the most radical of radicals after all is a good deal of a 
conservative. He accepts many things on faith. For instance, the popular 
belief in “ Progress.” Not only does he not criticize the concept of 
Progress; he accepts it as an unquestioned fact and does his best to 
accelerate it. As the late Prof. William Graham Sumner of Yale said, 
the great bulk of our popular beliefs is embedded in our “ mores” or 
folkways. None of us is able wholly to emancipate himself from the 
folkways. Were it not for the folkways there could be no point of 
contact in our various social situations. There could be no communication 
or cooperation among men. Public opinion, therefore, even though it 1s 
full of errors, is indispensable. 


Although public opinion is indispensable it is not necessary that 
it be left in ignorance and folly. Social progress consists in lifting public 
opinion to higher levels. The task of wisdom is not to abolish it, but 
to correct it wherever possible, subjecting it, as much as may be, to private 
judgment. This is why free speech, freedom of thought and assembly 
are so tremendously important. They are the very basis of social advance. 
This is why the liberal spirit of tolerance, that rare quality which came 


198 


into the world with the 18th century free thinkers, and is today on 
the decline, is yet to be encouraged. Tolerance is not a mere sentiment 
of brotherly love or indifference to what people believe; but, once it is 
established among men it means that we have reached a turning point in 
history. After that, human advance may proceed at a pace never before 
possible. 


A Criticism of Present Day Public Opinion. 


In discussing public opinion we should be much concerned about the 
low level on which it exists today. Why is it that on the whole the 
newspapers with the widest circulation are those which are the cheapest 
and least sincere? There are a few exceptions to this, but the exceptions 
only prove the rule. Note the captions that appear in the motion pictures, 
and for that matter the pictures themselves. Why is the motion picture 
what it is? The answer I think is obvious. The trouble with the motion 
picture 1s the audience. We have here a new fact in the history of art. 
All previous movements in art necessarily had to appeal to the cultured 
few, and hence the works of art reflected the mentality of the persons 
for whom they were created. With the coming of the motion picture and 
its “ quantity production ”’ it was necessary for the first time in history— 
at least modern history—that a form of art make its appeal to the man 
on the street. It was obliged, therefore, to present those things which 
reflected this man’s mentality. If you want to know what public opinion 
in America is, go to a “movie;” read the fiction magazines; attend a 
religious revival; visit Coney Island; subscribe to the Saturday Evening 
Post; read the advertisements in the street-cars. 


A number of my friends are trying to popularize psychology. They 
are sometimes able to secure an audience of a few hundred people for 
the scientific presentation of the subject. But irresponsible pseudo-psy- 
chologists can go about the country with a cheap, vulgar, caricature of this 
science and can attract many thousands to their psychological clown show. 
If a man can bat a base-ball over the Bull Durham sign at the back of 
the out field, the papers must devote many pages to him. If a man wins 
the Nobel prize for the most important work in Astronomical Physics, 
his name will remain unknown except to the few scientists who are his 
colleagues. If you wish to know what public opinion is, compare the 
popularity of John Dewey with that of Frank Crane. Ask yourself, what 
is the most popular song in America today. 


Now the standards of public opinion revealed by the things I have 
mentioned characterize it in all its manifestations. Political opinion is not 
at all more reliable or intelligent than is the reaction of the public to 
the “ movies,” or to base-ball. One may wonder why public opinion is 
so persistently cheap and insincere. There are several reasons. First, 
the one I have suggested: because of the type of thinker whose opinion 
becomes standardized. We have learned from the intelligence tests one 
fact at least and that is that the mental level of the average person is 
fairly low. Yet the way the spiritual life of the community is now 
organized (especially since the circulation of books and the printing of 
newspapers, and so on, must be made to pay commercially), makes it 
necessary that all things appeal to and to some extent reflect the mentality 


199 


of the duller minds in the community. Any organization of our cultural 
life which makes it possible that mediocrity have a voice in determining 
what shall survive, degrades the values of civilization. 


I do not mean that the man on the street should not be permitted to 
choose his own amusements and to be free to think his own ideas. I think 
every effort should be made to educate him but he should not be put into 
a position where he decides what other people shall think and like. 


Not only is the standardization of opinion according to the dilemmas of 
mediocrity being brought about by our present methods of quantity pro- 
duction, but it is also being achieved by the present trend of legislation. 
A number of southern legislatures have passed laws forbidding the teach- 
ing of Evolution in educational institutions supported by the public. We 
may yet see a constitutional amendment to this effect within a few years. 
The rapid growth of the censorship is another case in point. At one 
time there were over twenty State legislatures considering bills for the 
censorship of motion pictures. Now censorship is a form of propaganda. 
It means that any group which does not. like itself to see certain things 
can, through political pressure, prevent anyone else from seeing them. 
The same tendency is seen in the proposed legislation in New York, the 
aim of which is to establish a state censorship of books. On the pretext 
that they are suppressing “ vice,’’ representatives of “lowbrowism” are 
really doing their best to drag all intelligence down to the level of the 
lowest cranial altitude. 


A second cause of the present low state of public opinion is the 
wide use of propaganda. ‘The late Frank Cobb, editor of The New York 
World, said that public opinion in America is no longer free. He said 
that around all the sources of our information there is camped an army 
of press agents whose work it is to manipulate the public. He said that 
there were in 1919 about twelve hundred of these persons in New York 
City alone. During the war “the government suppressed the truth; the 
government distorted the truth; lied glibly and magnificently when occasion 
seemed to require.’”’ Now all sorts of agencies have learned the propa- 
gandist trick and have their special press agents. “‘ The great corpora- 
tions have them; the banks have them; the railroads have them. All the 
organizations of business and of social and political activity have them 
and they are the media through which news comes. Even statesmen 
have them.” 


He might have added that even churches have them. Vast sums 
of money are now spent, and the cleverest advertisers are employed, on 
the assumption that by cleverness it is possible to sell religion in the 
manner that soap is sold. A very illuminating fact was revealed in the 
recent trial of the superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, where it 
was brought out that prohibition activities of the most far reaching signi- 
ficance were supported in this State of New York by persons whose identity 
is kept a secret to this day. Mr. Cobb concludes that “‘ What the United 
States needs more than anything else today is the restoration of the free 
play of public opinion.” 


One of the devices of propaganda is constant repetition. In order 
to get people to believe a lie it is only necessary to go on repeating it. 


200 


As Prof. Santayana says: “ This happy people can read. It supports a 
press conforming to the tastes of the common man, or rather to such tastes 
as common men can have in common; for the best in each is not diffused 
enough to be catered for in public. Moreover, this press is audaciously 
managed by some adventitious power, which guides it for its own pur- 
poses, commercial or sectarian. Superstitions old and new thrive in this 
infected atmosphere; they are now all treated with a curious respect, 
as if nobody could have anything to object to them. 


“A confused competition of all propagandas—those insults to human 
nature—is carried on by the most expert psychological methods, which 
the art of advertising has discovered; for instance, by always repeating 
a lie, when it has been exposed, instead of retracting it. The world at 
large is deafened; but each propaganda makes its little knot of proselytes, 
and inspires them with a new readiness to persecute and to suffer in 
the sacred cause. The only question is, which propaganda can first 
materially reach the greatest number of persons, and can most efficaciously 
quencuallthefotners: arene ee 


“By giving a free rein to such propagandas, and by disgusting the 
people with too much optimism, toleration, and neutrality, liberalism has 
introduced a new reign of unqualified ill-will. Hatred and wilfulness 
are everywhere; nations and classes are called to life on purpose to embody 
them; they are summoned by their leaders to shake off the lethargy of 
contentment and to become conscious of their existence and of their 
terrible wrongs.” 


“These propagandas have taken shape in the blue sky of liberalism, 
like so many summer clouds; they seem airships sailing under a flag of 
truce; but they are engines of war, and on the first occasion they will 
hoist their true colours, and break the peace which allowed them to cruise 
over us so leisurely. Each will try to establish its universal ascendancy 
by force, in contempt of personal freedom, or the voice of majorities. 


“Incipient formations in the body politic, cutting across and subvert- 
ing its old constitution, eat one another up, like different species of 
animals; and the combat can never cease except some day, perhaps, for 
Jack of combatants. Liberalism has merely cleared a field in which every 
soul and every corporate interest may fight with every other for domina- 
tion. Whoever is victorious in this struggle will make an end of liberalism; 
and the new order, which will deem itself saved, will have to defend 
itself in the following age against a new crop of rebels.” 


Another device of propaganda is insinuation. People may be inveigled 
into accepting such beliefs as certain interested persons wish them to 
entertain by a sort of flagrant duplicity. While they are giving their 
assent to a proposition which in itself is quite innocent, it is made to 
appear that this proposition means something quite different. We had a 
great deal of this sort of thing during the war when it was common for 
certain sales organizations to exploit their own interests on a pretext that 
the customer in buying their particular brand of goods was helping to 
“win the war.” 


201 


I have gathered a number of such advertisements. The following are 
typical: Here is a large picture of a beautiful child at the breakfast 
table. The advertisement reads: “Little Americans, you can do your 
bit”’—Eat a certain brand of breakfast food. Another reads: ‘“ Have 
you a sweetheart, son, or brother in training camps in the American Army 
or Navy? If so, mail him a package of Allen’s Foot Ease.” Again, 
“ Build fighting strength with Father John’s remedy.” The following is 
typical, I have it from a certain hotel in Western Pennsylvania. There 
was put on my table a card displaying a large picture of the American 
flag, The card read as follows: 


“WAR 
and 
SERVICE 


Labor is scare—Our men are being called to serve their coun- 
try—We will not replace those that leave but will ask those who 
are left to work harder and so do their share (the italics are mine). 
Will you, the guest, be considerate—It is one way in which YOU 
cam helps 62 


One of the most touching of all these war-time advertisements was 
a placard displayed in the sub-way after the armistice was signed. The 
sentiment here was 100% American: “When Johnny comes marching 
home again, give him a Tootsie Roll.” 


Public opinion is everywhere about on the level of commercial adver- 
tising. As a matter of fact, propaganda 1s nothing but advertising. We 
should always look for what the propagandist has to sell and should not 
be taken in by his big words. Professions of faith in ideals on the part 
of propagandists are only screens which hide their real intent. If you can 
get a number of people to agree to anything, true or false, you may turn 
that belief into a platitude, an abstraction, treat it as something final, some- 
thing to be accepted uncritically. Then identify it with your own ulterior 
purpose, smear it all about your purpose like the sugar-coating about a 
dose of quinine, and in swallowing the sugar men will swallow your 
quinine also. 


Most people will agree that murder is wicked. That being the case, 
those who wish to prevent any change of public opinion regarding the 
subject of “ birth control” need only argue that birth control is murder, 
the murder of unborn children, even before they are conceived. Hence, 
those who advocate the change of the New York Statute do not only 
advocate something indecent; they are advocating ‘murder.’ So the 
Common Council of the City of Syracuse passes an ordinance prohibiting 
all discussion of this subject, even discussion of the repeal of the present 
law. This is not an attack on free speech, of course. The city fathers 
are merely doing their duty in protecting human life. 


Once men agree, as they properly do and should, that the laws must 
be obeyed, all that is necessary is to collect a large sum of money and 
bully or cajole our legislators to pass the 18th amendment, and straight- 
way those who wish to take a drink are no longer merely “ intemperate.” 
Behold, they are “ scofflaws.” Had the advocates of sobriety put forth 


202 


the same amount of effort in the attempt to persuade people to be tem- 
perate in their habits that they now put forth persuading them to obey 
an unpopular law, they might have been more successful, might have saved 
themselves a lot of trouble, and America today might have been a more 
law-abiding nation. 

With the propagandists’ use of such concepts as law, lawfulness, 
and nearly all the generalizations used in crowd propaganda,—- 
“ justice,” “ brotherly love,’ “truthfulness,” “virtue” become mere in- 
struments for working the will of some sect or group upon the community 
as a whole. There is probably no word to which men will so uniformly 
assent as “morality.” Neitzsche once said that the public may always 
be led by the nose in the name of morality. 


Let the professional “reformer” then have his say and he will 
capitalize your morality in the interest of his own prejudices. He will 
tell you that a man is known by the company he keeps; that no man 
can be moral who habitually associates with immoral persons. A man, 
then, is an associate of evil people whether he knows such rascals person- 
ally or invites them into his house as fictitious characters to practice their 
evil deeds between the covers of a book. If you read Shakespeare you are 
the evil companion of Falstaff; if you read Flaubert, you are an associate 
of Madame Bovary. Hence morality demands that the police edit our 
literature. 


All this means that public opinion becomes a device for coercion. 
It means that by the use of clever propaganda public opinion can be 
manufactured like bricks and delivered anywhere f. 0. b. As I have said 
many times at Cooper Union, all propaganda is lies; it is insinuation. 
It should be looked in the face without “batting an eye.” It should be 
met without compromise. It should be laughed oif the stage by intelligent 
people. When I was chairman of the National Board of Review of Motion 
Pictures I once received a great bundle of letters. These letters all came 
from a large mid-western city. There were dozens of resolutions, prac- 
tically identical, which had been passed by nearly every up-lift organiza- 
tion in the community: churches, ministers’ associations, women’s clubs, 
school teachers, and so on. The resolutions stated that the motion 
pictures were very, very, wicked and that I was personally to be held 
accountable henceforth for everything that appeared in them. Particularly 
the resolutions demanded that I personally see to it that no motion 
picture show anyone taking a drink of liquor, no woman smoking a 
cigarette, and in fine, nothing that in any way could be interpreted as 
making clergymen and social workers appear ridiculous. 


Now the National Board was not a censorship organization. It was 
merely advisory, and its main task was to help producers to free their 
products of vulgarity and insincerity. In other words, to improve the 
artistic character of motion pictures. Yet the greatest pressure was brought 
to bear upon the secretary and the Chairman of the Board to use this 
agency to compel the whole American public to conform to all sorts of 
provincial pseudo-moral ideas. Had I yielded in the case just mentioned, 
those people would have demanded still more provincial restrictions. What 
I did and what I would advise should be done generally was to write these 
over-excited people a letter stating that their demands were essentially 
childish and provincial; that I knew many splendid women who smoked 


203 


cigarettes; that I thought, on the whole, that smoking was good for them. 
And furthermore, as to making clergymen and social workers appear 
ridiculous, that, as a matter of fact, they often were ridiculous, and never 
so much so as in a case like this, when they were trying to preserve their 
imaginary dignity under the pretext that they were fighting in the cause 
of morality. 


Finally, public opinion is today on a low level because of the function 
of crowd ideas. Crowd ideas are all rationalizations. They are not 
problem-solving ideas. To the crowd-mind there are no problems. The 
crowd always knows the answer. Crowd ideas have the function of 
justifying the anti-social behavior of the crowd itself. There are two 
aims that are always present when groups of men become crowd-minded. 
First, the crowd is a device for preserving the egoism of its members. 
In lauding one’s crowd, one praises oneself. Second, the crowd mind is 
always hostile to someone. The easiest way to get a crowd is to raise an 
issue, denounce someone, protest against some “ evil.” As I have elsewhere 
tried to show,* public opinion is today of the same type as paranoia. 


I wish to close this discussion with a little preachment on the right 
and duty of private judgment. If private judgment is to exist, there must 
be less standardization of opinion in this country. There must be more 
tolerance than the masses seem now disposed to exercise or permit. The 
mass must cease worshipping itself. And this spirit of tolerance must 
extend to all classes. 


One of the most disillusioning facts which has come to my notice 
in recent years is the alacrity with which the communists in Russia, as 
soon as they gained power, became a propagandist organization and set 
up a rigid censorship, quite as intolerable as that under which they 
themselves had suffered under the old regime. This was bad enough, 
but the action was approved by a large number of the radical proletariat 
of America. I do not know how many times I have heard men say 
here in Cooper Union that ruthlessness, censorship, coercion on the part 
of the working class, should this class ever come into power, are quite 
justified by the fact that their opponents had resorted to the same practices. 


Even the necessity of conserving the new order against counter-revolu- 
tion could not justify this spirit. We had looked to labor once to help in 
freeing the world of tyranny and exploitation. When its proposed supre- 
macy fails to hold out a promise of such liberation to mankind, labor neces- 
sarily must lose the sympathy of thinking men. When a society loses its 
spirit of tolerance that society is going down. I am not pointing to labor 
here as at all different from the other movements which exist in the world 
today. Catholics and Protestants and Prohibitionists and the Ku Klux 
Klan and the Fascisti are all evidences—evidence of the fact that a world 
controlled by the rank and file, a world in which uncultivated men scramble 
for power, in a word, a democratic world, cannot be a free world. 


I am going to start a little revolution of my own. Not a violent 
revolution, but a spiritual revolution. I want to overthrow the present 
rulers of society: Mr. Babbitt and his less prosperous brother, Henry 
Dubb. While these men control opinions, and therefore control the 
world, our common life must remain a rather shoddy affair. 


* The Behavior of Crowds, Harper & Brothers 1920. 


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The Psychology of Religion 














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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION.* 


ce an discussion of religion is very difficult. Religion involves 
.» the emotional life. It is rooted in the unconscious. The religious 
spirit resists analysis. A psychological and impartial account of religion 
necessarily appears to be cold and lacking in sympathetic appreciation of 
those things which to the religious mind are intense and glowing realities 
immediately known. 


Moreover, most discussion of religion is partisan. We are in the 
habit of approaching the subject with preconceived ideas. Most popular 
discussion of religion is not really discussion at all. It is propaganda, the 
purpose of which is either attack or defence. It is not our purpose to 
attack religion or defend it. Our aim in this lecture is to note those 
psychological aspects of the subject which are of special sociological im- 
portance. I wish to approach the subject from the standpoint of psycho- 
pathology. We have already seen that psycho-pathology, although it deals 
with abnormal mental life, throws much light upon many types of be- 
havior which are quite normal. I am not suggesting that religion is 
necessarily a psychopathic phenomenon, but I think I can show that it 
has something to do with the unconscious and that many of the things 
that we have said about the unconscious in general will apply to religious 
phenomena. We are interested in this subject at present because religion 
is a very common form of human experience; because religious practices 
and beliefs are characteristic of the great bulk of the human race and be- 
cause through a knowledge of religion we may gain some new insight 
into human nature which would be of help to us as social psychologists. 


We shall be obliged to limit the range of our investigation to a very 
small radius. Religion is many things. It is involved in all sorts of 
human interests. An adequate study of it would lead us into history, 
metaphysics, poetry, antropology; in fact, there is hardly a sphere of 
human interest in which there are not some ramifications of that which 
might be called religion. The narrower view which we are taking neces- 
sarily leaves out much. It is open to the criticism that it is a one-sided 
view. I am quite aware of this fact, but no one could be expected to dis- 
cuss so broad a subject as this in one lecture. In fact, whole literatures 
are written on this subject. If any one feels that I am unfair to religion 
in treating those aspects of it which lie within the scope of psychology and 
in treating them as strictly natural phenomena, I can only reply that while 
it is conceivable that religion is much more than this, yet, religion is at 
least what I am going to try to show it to be. Therefore, leaving his- 

torical and transcendental matters aside, it cannot be denied that some 
~ facts of human behavior and experience may properly be characterized as 
religious. Such facts belong within the scope of psychology, and we are 
wholly justified in treating them like any other psychological phenomenon, 
as facts of natural history. We are not, therefore, in this lecture in- 
terested in anything supernatural. 

There are three questions which I am going to ask and strive to 
answer. First, what is the essential and distinctive element in religion? 


* For Extended Discussion of this theme, consult the Author’s Book “The Mystery 
of Religion,” Harpers, 1924. 
[207] 


208 


Second, what is the psychological explanation of this elemental fact of 
religion? And third, what in the light of our psychological understanding 
of it, is the importance of religion for the student of society? 


What is the distinctive element in religion? As Plato would say, 
let us try to “find” religion; that is, let us attempt to discover that factor 
which is peculiar to religion alone and which is always present wherever 
religion exists. Is there anything so essential to religion that we may 
correctly say that where this exists we are in the presence of religious be- 
havior and where it does not exist, we are not in that presence. I have 
just said that religion is many things There are many types of activity 
and of human interest associated with it. Many things which are com- 
monly spoken of as religion may not be universally present in religion, 
and may also be characteristic of other things than religion. Let us 
note some of these. 


The Essential Element in Religion. 


Is theology the essential factor in religion? A great many people 
think that it is. The average man, when he tries to give an account of 
his religion, talks about what he “ believes.” He tells you his convictions 
about the origin and nature of the universe; about the deity; about certain 
alleged historical transactions; about his hope for the future. It is true 
that religious people in general do have certain beliefs about such things 
just as perhaps all other people may speculate and have their opinions about 
stich matters. Some of these beliefs also are so standardized by various 
religious sects that they became the authorized creed and dogma professed 
by certain groups. But is such belief the essence of religion? I do not 
think it is. I do not believe that religion is primarily a method of ex- 
plaining the universe. Most of the so-called explanations that pass cur- 
rent in the name of religion are in reality not the outgrowths of religion 
so much as survivals of the philosophical speculation of a pre-scientific 
period in history. If religion consists in speculations about the origin 
and meaning of life and the world, then we must classify as religious 
many persons who should not be so classified. 


There have been many consciously anti-religious philosophers who have 
had their beliefs or theories about the origin of things. The deists of a cen- 
tury ago even believed in a Supreme Being, a Creator. And yet we can 
hardly say that their interest was essentially religious. Again, if religion is 
to be identified with beliefs about God and the universe, and so on, it would 
be difficult to know just what religion is, because there is probably not a 
single religious doctrine concerning which all professedly religious people 
agree. They do not even agree about the idea of God. Some hold that 
there are many gods; some hold that there is only one; some are Trin- 
itarians; some are Unitarians; some are Pantheistic; that is, they identify 
the creator with creation itself; some are Agnostic; and some, like Budd- 
hists, may be deeply religious without any belief in the deity at all. Con- 
sequently, we cannot find in profession of belief anything which dis- 
tinguishes the religious person from the non-religious; nor can we find 
a doctrine which is characteristic alike of all religious groups. And this 
is not surprising. For religion is not a matter of logical theory, nor of 
intellectual concern. It goes deeper than the reason and involves the 
inner psychic life, 


209 


Is religion essentially a matter of institutions? A great many people 
would doubtless at first say that it is. Ask a man what his religion is 
and he may say, “I am a Methodist,” or “ A Catholic,” or a “ Jew,” by 
which he means that he is a member of an organized religious community 
whose life is expressed in certain institutions. The Church is the great 
religious institution and it is true that religous people of all sorts com- 
monly have churches or congregations of one sort or another. But is the 
religious institution so characteristic of religion that we may say it is 
the essential element of it? In other words, is all of religion in the 
church, and all that is outside, irreligious? I doubt if we could truthfully 
say this. There are many persons who belong to churches who are not 
necessarily religious. Churches themselves are not strictly religious in- 
stitutions. They are also social institutions, and are sometimes even 
political institutions, having often their partisan interests in the body 
politic and standing for legislative and political policies of one sort or 
another which have nothing directly to do with religion. In some 
countries there is a definite Catholic Party. In the middle ages, the 
Church was necessarily a political institution, the Pope being a temporal 
ruler as well as a spiritual ruler, and this condition resulted from the fact 
that with the downfall of the empire it was necessary for the Church to 
preserve the remnants of the social order. In America Protestant 
churches are frequently interested in politics. Many of them are or- 
ganized into an agency known as the Anti-Saloon League which has been 
declared to be a political party. As there is much in the church, there- 
fore, that is not distinctly religious, so there are many very religious 
people who do not belong to any church. The church is, therefore, 
not co-extensive with religion and cannot be said to be the essential 
element in it. 


Is religion the same as morals? Many people would say that is is 
You frequently hear it said that religion is a life. People feel that they 
are religious to the extent that they try to “be good.” There is some 
biblical authority for this view, “ What doth the Lord require thee but to do 
justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” “ Pure re- 
ligion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: To visit the 
fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted 
from the world.” It is a characteristically modern idea that religion con- 
sists in the practical love of humanity; that he who works for the com- 
mon good and serves his fellow-men and obeys the precepts of conven- 
tional morality is essentially a religious person. However, it must be said 
that most religious institutions have their specific moral codes and dis- 
ciplines. The Hebrew religion has its commandments; so also has the 
Christian. It may, therefore, seem at first rather startling when I say 
that in spite of all this, religion and morality have very little to do with 
each other. In our day, people strive to persuade themselves that they 
are religious when they cease to hold traditional religious beliefs but 
still defer to the prestige of religious sanctions. The ethical element in 
religion is emphasized. People feel that they are meeting the require- 
ments of religion when they are merely conventionally moral. As a 
matter of fact, in early times when religious institutions and practices 
were not segregated as in present civilization, moral precepts were often 
put forth in the name of religious authority. 


210 


Nevertheless ethics is purely a matter of practical and necessary 
social adjustment. We are permanently in one another’s environment 
and it becomes necessary for survival that the social environment be made 
such that adjustment to it is possible. Consequently certain habits are 
established which give security and some predictability to the life of the 
group, and certain forms of mutual adjustment necessarily grow up. 
These are the morals or “mores” of the community. In our day these 
“mores ”’ are more plastic than they were in earlier times. They are even 
subjected to intelligent criticism and men begin to see that only the re- 
sults of behavior taken in their larger aspects can serve as criteria for 
that which is good and bad. Any other criterion of behavior than that 
found in the results of human action is irrelevant. While many people 
still judge behavior by irrelevant standards, there is, however, unless one 
takes a superstitious view of the case, nothing more sacred about morality 
than there is about sawing wood. There is a right way and a wrong way 
to drive a nail or saw a board, just as there is*a right and wrong way to 
do anything. As Dewey says, “ Moral conduct is intelligent conduct.” 
We confuse the matter very much when we strive to make a religion 
of morals. For in such a case, moral precepts are given sanctions which 
tend to place the criteria of behavior beyond the range of intelligent judg- 
ment or of consideration of results. Behavior then becomes slavish, auto- 
matic, and irrelevant. People, then may feel.that they are doing a good 
deed when they merely strike an attitude, defer to certain sanctions, or 
perform required acts in a ceremonial and routine manner. The healthiest 
moral philosophy is that which refuses to permit people to substitute tra- 
ditional sanctities for intelligent considerations of the results of behavior, 
as the criteria of the good. Conventional ethics from the time of the Phari- 
sees to their successors the Puritans, has always been to some extent a 
popular substitute for religion. 


Furthermore, religious people, as we shall see later in this lecture, 
very often organize themselves into groups which in time become crowd- 
minded. Now itis characteristic of all crowds that they plead popular 
moral generalizations in justification of their peculiar crowd behavior. 
Religious crowds are no exception and just because religious people are 
often “peculiar ’’ people, that is, because their habits are different from 
those of the “ worldly” people about them, they seek to justify their un- 
usualness by an appeal to the fact that they are very moral. A religion, 
therefore, tends to borrow the best ethical ideas from the folkways of the 
people of the age in which it has its origin. 


It cannot be denied that there are many people who are very moral, 
yet are not religious. On the other hand, there are many religious per- 
sons, I mean deeply and genuinely religious persons, who do not neces- 
sarily go in for morality. The history of religion shows that more than 
once in Christian times this distinction between ethics and religion has 
been manifested. St. Paul, for instance, before he became a Christian 
was chiefly concerned with the idea of moral purity. He strove deliberately 
to achieve a perfect moral life but found such perfection to be barren, 
and from his point of view, even unattainable. Later Christianity meant 
to St. Paul, primarily, that he had been delivered from the servitude of 
moral convention. Like Nietzsche he had found a freedom which was 


211 


“beyond good and evil.” As St. Paul put it, he found a righteousness 
apart from law. It is interesting to note that as far apart as St. Paul 
and Neitzsche are in other matters, they agree on this point. St. Paul 
always urged his fellow-believers to stand fast in the liberty which they 
had through their belief in Christ. He even goes so far as to condemn 
the law, or morals, as the “law of sin and death.” He strives to point 
out that there is in religion a type of life in which morality takes on 
secondary importance. This does not mean that St. Paul urges people to 
be immoral; in fact, he commonly does the reverse. But, nevertheless, 
morality is not the essence of St. Paul’s religion. It is incidental. In 
fact, so great is the contrast between that which St. Paul regards as the 
essence of religion and conventional morality that he himself is aware of 
the problem which this contrast raises. He asks if we are, therefore, to 
commit sin in order that grace may abound and his answer is not an argu- 
ment which clears up the difficulty but merely a flat denial, “ God forbid.” 


This super-ethical element in religion has given rise to those anti- 
nomian cults which have appeared in Christian history. Antinomianism is 
the doctrine that the grace of God has so completely superseded the re- 
quirements of morality that those who have experienced religion are 
wholly delivered from the necessity of moral behavior. Hence, again we 
shall have to say that morality is not something which is co-extensive 
with the religious interest. It is not therefore, the essential element in 
religion and I am sure that many deeply religious people will agree with 
me in this. This is what Protestants mean when they say, “ Salvation by 
grace”’ rather than by works. 


What then is the essential element? Let us see if we can discover 
it. I will begin with a commonplace illustration: One morning as I 
was passing from my house to the office of the Institute I saw a group of 
persons gathered at the corner of 11th Street. As I approached I saw 
a man kneeling on the pavement, writing something with a large piece 
of white chalk. As I drew near, the man rose and exhorted the people 
who had gathered to watch him, to repent, telling them that only Christ 
could save them. I noticed what he had written. The words were, “ Jesus 
is all in all to me. I need no other friend.” Now this man was doubt- 
less unbalanced, but what he was trying to say was that he believed he 
had found in his Christian experience something which assured him of 
eternal salvation, whatever that may be. On the front of a great Catholic 
Church in the middle West, I once read the words in Latin—“ Jesus Christ 
crucified, the Savior of the World.” Many well informed Protestants 
would say that the essence of their faith is the scheme of salvation. Again, 
what is the most important day in the Hebrew calendar? It is Yom Kippur, 
which, translated, means the day of forgiveness, or as the English Bible has 
it, the Great Day of Atonement. Listen to the Salvation Army on the cor- 
ner and you will hear people testifying to the fact that whereas they were 
formerly great sinners, now they have been saved. Unitarians believe in 
“ Salvation by Character.’’ Pagan sacrifices were performed in order to 
render the gods propitious and the abject heathens in their ritual dances and 
other rites, are likewise seeking to remove the curse of evil, master wicked 
spirits, gain newness of life. Buddhism likewise lays down “the path”’ 
by which one may attain nirvana—deliverance. So everywhere in re- 


212 


ligion there is one common element; and that is, the redemption from sin 
or the “ salvation of the soul.” 


Whatever the means employed, whether the sacrifice or prayer or the 
holy sacrament or conversion in a religious revival, whether offering the 
contrite heart or the practice of asceticism, the aim is the same: redemp- 
tion. And whatever the beliefs may be in which this idea is Pb, 
whether the redemption is to be had in this world or a future world, 
whether it is the redemption of the nation or tribe or individual, whether 
that which is looked forward to is to be an escape from a sinful world 
or an entire new creation of the cosmos, the interest is still the same-- 
redemption. Here I think we have at last discovered the essence of re- 
ligion. Where men are seeking the salvation of the soul from sin there is 


religion, “And wherever religion exists this is its elemental transaction. 


Religious Ideas Are Symbols. 


Now let us consider the psychology of this matter of redemption 
from sin. It is obvious that we have here a psychological problem. I 
have just referred to the man who wrote a sentiment of a religious nature 
on the pavement. There is one element in this incident which I have not 
mentioned, and that is the behavior of the little group who watched the 
man. Before I noticed what had happened I noticed the faces of the people. 
They were obviously embarrased. As we would say, they looked “ sheep- 
ish.” This embarrassment may have been due to the feeling which we 
have when anyone does an unconventional thing. But there is more to 
such embarrassment than this. A great many people are more or less 
ashamed of their religious beliefs and practices. Perhaps it is this feeling 
of shame which drives religionists together in sectarian groups. In the 
religious group where all are practicing and beliving the same things, 
where the expressions of religion become official and conventional, this 
feeling of embarrassment is not so great. The group constitutes an en- 
vironment which is congenial to religion. But even in such cases the feel- 
ing of shyness about one’s religion is very common. There is a song 
which contains the following sentiment: ‘ Jesus, and shall it ever be, a 
mortal man ashamed of thee.” Such a song would never have been 
written if religionists did not have to suppress a certain amount of shame. 
It is this shame also which must be overcome before one can make public 
profession of his faith, and it is for this reason also that confession of 
faith’ is commonly regarded as a virtue. 


Now why is there this note of embarrassment concerning religion? 
The answer is, the unconscious is in some way involved. Religious 
phrases are very like those “ complex words” which we saw, in the Jung 
association tests, cause embarrassment of a similar nature. Religious 
phrases are expressions of something in the unconscious. Religious ideas, 
like other expressions of the unconscious, are symbols and before we can 
proceed farther with our psychological study of religion we must em- 
phasize this point. All ideas, in so far as they have religious significance, 
are figurative and symbolic. We ‘should expect this, for the same is 
true of dreams, day-dreams and art, in which the motive is also 
unconscious. 


I haven’t time within the scope of this lecture to enter into an ex- 
tended discussion of the symbolic nature of religious ideas, but it 1s 


213 


generally admitted that some religious ideas and practices are symbolic. 
Surely there is much symbolism in ritual and ceremony of all kinds. 
Much of the language of the Bible should be understood as figures of 
speech. Esoteric sects have existed in all religions who have maintained 
that the true explanation of their religion lay below the surface and was 
a secret known only to themselves. 


If it is generally admitted that some religious ideas are symbolic, 
just where should we draw the line between those which are symbols and 
those which are not? It may be said that certain metaphysical realities 
and historical facts are not symbolic. For instance, there is the idea of 
God. Perhaps it is a little startling at first to think of all ideas of Deity 
as pure symbols; but such is the case. Let us note the conceptions which 
men have entertained of Deity: The Creator, The Sovereign, The Father. 
In fact, every concept of Deity stands for a fundamental human interest. 
Prof. Foster used to say that the idea of God is a symbol of our apprecia- 
tion of the universe in its ideal achieving capacity. James said the func- 
tion of the idea of God is to make us feel at home in the universe. The 
words in which this idea is expressed are clearly figurative. Those be- 
longing to the Aryan group, Deus, Theos, Zeus, Jupiter, and so forth, are 
all derived from the root word which means sky or day. The word 
Lord is obviously a symbol derived from human social experience; the 
word Spirit comes from a root which means breath. The word Jehovah 
is a hybrid word, the vowels belonging to the word Adonah, lord, a word 
which the Hebrew scholars substituted for the sacred name. The con- 
sonants are those of the word Jaweh. There is some dispute as to the 
true meaning of this term. The book of Exodus derives the word from 
the verb to be. But this derivation is probably erroneous. The Hebrew 
proper names in which this name of Deity is combined such as Elijah, 
Abijah, Zedekiah, and others, would indicate that the word Jaweh is de- 
rived from the root Jah and has been identified by some Hebrew scholars 
with Ea, the thunderer, the storm-god of Babylonian mythology. In any 
event, the idea of Deity is a symbolic expression of men’s desire to as- 
sign a character or meaning to the universe as a whole. 


There are certain historical ideas associated with religion but these 
too, so far as they are of religious significance, are not seized upon by 
religion because of the mere fact that the alleged events happened, but 
because such events have significance as expressive of religious attitudes 
and wishes. Asa matter of fact, the historicity of these alleged events 
is quite unimportant. The truth of religion has nothing to do with these 
historical facts as mere facts, any more than the truth or value of Shakes- 
peare’s “ Hamlet”? depends upon the fact that such a Danish prince ever 
existed as a historical character. Much scholarly effort has been expended 
in recent years in the attempt to discover beneath the myths and legends 
of the New Testament story the historical Jesus of Nazareth. The re- 
sults of this study would indicate that such a historical personage, even 
could he be discovered, must be very different from the Christ of Christian 
belief. This latter is a symbol. 


I am dwelling on this symbolic character of religious ideas and be- 
liefs because it is in the symbols that we_must discover the psychological 


A a 


meaning of the matter of redemption from sin. Chiefly important among 


214 


the symbols of religion is the idea of the “ Heavenly Father.” This idea 
is very wide-spread in religion because it reflects a universal human ex- 
perience, the child-parent relationship. Psychopathologists are in the 
habit of looking at this child-parent relationship as one of the main 
sources of the phenomena of the unconscious. It is no mere accident that 
men speak of the Deity as Father. This is a common practice, both 
Christian and Jewish. The child in its early years looks upon his Father 
as an ideal person. The father is strong, he is wise; in his presence there 
is security from all harm; he provides all the child’s wants; in fact, nearly 
all members of the human family have first learned to adjust themselves 
to the world through the assistance and under the protection of the parents. 


It would be strange indeed if this experience which necessarily re- 
sults in an almost universal habit of life long emotional fixation upon the 
parent image should not play a part in men’s adjustment to the world in 
their maturer years. It is known that we do not really outgrow our 
childish habits, but utilize them in later life in many emotional situations, 
modifying them when necessary, and directing them toward new ends, or 
as Watson would say, reconditioning them. When the growing youth about 
the time of his adolesence finds himself a new being, face to face with a 
new and wider environment, with new tasks and duties and dangers to 
face, it is natural that he should strive so far as possible to meet the new 
situation in habitual ways. The youth needs security. He wishes to feel 
at home in the new situations into which he has suddenly grown. He 
therefore strives to conceive of the world as an imaginary family affair 
and he gains the feeling of security by constructing an imaginary father 
who will be to this larger family what the actual father was in the family 
circle of his childhood experiences. 


This device of gaining the feeling of security by the use of the im- 
aginary father leads, however, to a conflict within the psyche, or, rather, 
it revives a conflict which has lain there for a long time. Perhaps the 
best way I can suggest the seriousness of this conflict is to point out a 
very peculiar thing about this Father-Image. Among civilized religious 
people the deity is Father, yet Father only in one sense, in a sense that 
we inight call sexless paternity. The religious spirit resists any suggestion 
as to how the father becomes a father. He is father, but the idea of the 
conjugal relationship with the mother is violently suppressed. There is 
a psychological reason why this is so. There comes a time in the childhood 
of us all when the growing child has to meet his first really serious problem. 
Up to a certain age the child regards himself as the sole object of his 
parents’ love. He takes it for granted that their chief concern is with 
himself, to love and care for him, and to protect him. If he thinks of his 
parents as loving each other, he thinks of their love as quite like his own 
for them. Suddenly or gradually it dawns upon him that their love is 
different; that they are bound together by a tie different from that by 
which they are bound to him. He comes to realize that his father and 
mother have between themselves a carefully guarded secret, the very 
existence of which excludes himself. 


Otto Rank has shown that it is in this first disillusionment of child- 
hood that the hero-myth has its psychological roots. According to this 
myth, which exists with a good many modifications, the hero’s actual 


215 


parents are pictured as humble people, not his real parents at all; but 
mere foster parents. He has an ideal father, a king, or a noble, a great 
person, and in time his true parentage is made clear to all. Rank says 
that there are many normal children whose day-dreams are similar to 
this myth. Many psychopathic persons manifest such thoughts. 


Sin and Redemption. 


Probably every one of us has in some way passed through the 
period of disillusionment and alienation to which I have referred above 
though most of us have doubtless forgotten, repressed it into the un- 
conscious, where however, it still operates in ways unknown to us. This 
disillusionment of childhood accounts in part for the universal resistance 
in religion to the fact of sex. It it symbolized in the story of the Garden 
of Eden. It was the sin of the first parents that brought the curse on the 
human race. This is very often greatly exaggerated by the fact that many 
people become deeply attached, precociously so, to the parent of the op- 
posite sex and become very jealous of the other parent. When a boy be- 
comes so attached to his mother, he may fear and even hate his father. 
This emotional attachment to the mother image together with the hatred 
of the father are suppressed into the unconscious and may in later life 
lead to the Oedipus complex which I discussed in an earlier lecture. 


Now all this has much to do with the father-image as used in re- 
ligion. The growing child, when he conceives of the Heavenly Father 
pictures the father as the perfect or ideal father which he knew before 
he had to face the fact of the true nature of the love that existed between 
his parents. The Heavenly Father, therefore, is perfect in the sense that 
the disillusioned child conceives of perfection. But this perfection causes 
a conflict for the youth who in adolescence needs the father-image to give 
him the feeling of security. The adolescent individual finds that there are 
now in his own nature the very elements which in his childish egoism he 
refused to admit in the nature of the father. Consequently, the very use 
of the father-image in religion involves a conflict. ‘“‘ There must be re- 
conciliation with the father,” 


“This need of reconciliation is the feeling of.sim.. Sin is not what 
many moderns conceive it to be. Iti is not the same as concrete immoral 
behavior. (Sin jis thought of as “the corruption of the entire nature.” 
It is a curse. It is a soul- destroying, world-destroying, blight. The sin- 
ner does not regard himself as such because of something he has done ; 
but rather because of what he ts, The doctrine of sin is this: that human 
nature is sO “corrupt that no matter what sinful humanity may achieve, its 
achievement is only adding to the original offense. The individual must 
be born again. There is here a wish for the infantile return about which 
we have spoken in a previous lecture. The reconciliation with the. father 
is. redemption.from.sin. This reconciliation is achieved by the use of cer- 
tain symbols, The function of these symbols is to reconcile the child- 
hood idealism of the individual with the facts of his own mature nature. 
The father must be propitiated, must become forgiving. The individual 
must make use of such symbols as will cause his unconscious to accept the 
fact of this forgiveness. Until the forgiveness is achieved, the individual 
regards both himself and his world as worthless and vile. There are many 
hundreds of documents which, if I had time, I could quote to illustrate 
this point. I refer the reader to Tolstoy’s “My Confession” as typical 


216 


in some respects. The idea that the father forgives is in a sense a pro- 
jection; underneath it is the survival of the necessity of the child to for- 
give the father. In other words, the child must forgive the father be- 
fore he can forgive himself for the very fact of his developing nature. 


I have discussed this subject from the standpoint of the feeling of 
sin as individual sin. Among older religions the feeling was tribal and 
the reconciliation also a tribal affair as in the case of the Hebrew religion 
on the day of atonement. Freud, in the book “ Totem and Taboo,” shows 
that the same complex goes back to primitive times and is the origin of 
the sin offering, or blood sacrifice. 


Hence, we may say that redemption from sin is, psychologically 
speaking, a mechanism of defense against the feeling of inferiority, The 
salvation of the soul means in psychological terms the securing ofthe. 
“personality picture,” a matter which I discussed in an earlier lecture. 


Social Aspects of Religion. 


This leads us to the question of the significance of religion for social 
psychology. There are three important facts which deserve brief psy- 
chological discussion. First, the behavior of the religious community. 
Second, the fixation of religious symbols in general social habits. “And 
third, the survival of religious attitudes in secular activity. Religious 
people commonly associate themselves together. The impulse to do so 
is not merely the desire of like-minded people to have fellowship with one 
another. The religious fellowship serves to help the believers to keep 
their faith, to encourage them in the performance of religious ceremonies 
and to create a social environment in which the symbols and necessary 
fictions of religion may take on the appearance of objective reality. 


There is a peculiar fact about the religious community. Toward no 
other form of human association, not even the State, do men have such 
reverence. Men take a filial attitude toward their church. The church 
is the Holy Mother and it is very interesting that the mother-image which 
we saw is suppressed in religious symbolism along with the idea of the 
conjugal relation of the parents, reappears as the church. In entering the 
church, therefore, the believer symbolizes the wish for the return to the 
mother. In other words, we have here again a phase of the Oedipus com- 
plex, for the church here is both Mother and Bride. And this is true 
of the Christian church and the Hebrew congregation. In this way, the 
infantile wish becomes socialized and directed toward socially accepted 
goals. But the filial attitude toward the church, its very sacredness, 
tends to bring into operation another element. The church and the world 
are incompatible. The church is set over against the world; it becomes 
the “church militant.” In other words, the religious group conceiving 
itself as a peculiar people, tends to become crowd-minded and as the 
church gains in numerical strength through its proselyting, the will to 
power of its members tends to increase. It becomes coercive. And this 
note of coercion is almost universal. It exists in Protestant America to 
an alarming degree. Churches which begin as pure forms of religious 
fellowship concerned primarily with the discipline of their own members, 
in time come to exert coercion so far as they have power upon believers 
and unbelievers alike. Legislation is resorted to, and the attempt is made 
to compel all persons to conform. We have many evidences of this in 


217, 


the various moral crusades, prohibitions, censorships, and so forth, which 
have occupied the American public of late. There are even those now 
who in the name of religion would prevent not only their own co-believers 
accepting certain scientific ideas like the doctrine of evolution, but would 
also stop the teaching of evolution in purely sectarian institutions. Only 
recently a clergyman in New York City has denounced the Museum of 
Natural History because there are in that institution certain fossils which 
would stand as evidence of evolution. 


Again, the social psychologist should be interested in what I call the 
fixation of religious symbols in general social habits. Primitive and 
medieval societies were almost entirely controlled by religious ideas and 
customs. In a sense, this placing of social habit on a religious basis has 
advantages. It secures unquestioning conformity and gives to the social 
environment a stability and rigidity which make adjustment relatively 
easy. But it also has its disadvantages. For it makes for reactionism and 
leads men to use religion as a weapon in their resistance to social change 
and to new discoveries of truth. More serious still is the fact that when 
certain customs become fixed in this way so that all men are obliged to 
conform to them, there is a tendency to fasten upon all persons the dilem- 
mas of the mediocre type of man, since it is this man who is in the great 
majority. We might say that every religious movement in so far as it 
becomes a mass movement, is hostile to variation among men and tends to 
make use of religious ideas for the sake of the dominance of mediocrity. 
There is a touch of this even in the New Testament. There is very little 
said in this book that can be taken as encouragement for the artist, the 
scientist, the philosopher, the man of affairs. Such men existed, of course, 
in the first century A. D., but religion at that time was more concerned 
with the “ least of these our brethern.” God hath chosen the foolish things 
of this world to confound the wise. Blessed are meek for they shall in- 
herit the earth. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou or- 
dained strength. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And altogether it-would 
be better that a millstone were tied round a man’s neck and that he were 
drowned in the depths of the sea than that he should offend or “ scandal- 
ize’ one of the little ones. 


Finally there is for the social psychologist the fact of the survival of 
religious attitudes in secular activity. Let us note some of these attitudes 
for they eminate from the unconscious and they are like other phenomena 
of the unconscious. Religion as we saw is a fotal reaction and it is char- 
acteristic of total reactions that things appear to be all good or all bad. 
We see this all or none reaction commonly among religious people who 
divide the world into the saved and the lost, the saints and the damned. 
This attitude survives among many people who feel they are emancipated 
from traditional religion. We find it in such forms as chauvinism 
and in intense and bitter partisanship. Another religious attitude is what 
I would call predestinationism. Not all religionists are predestinationists. 
But since believers wish to make themselves feel secure in the world, they 
wish to feel that the future of the world is ordained in certain ways; 
that historical events occur in fulfilment of prophecy. A similar attitude 
is often found among persons who believe themselves to be quite hostile 
to traditional religion. It appears as the belief in a sort of pageantry of 


218 


history. Progress is assured and is inevitably making toward our own 
desired goal. We see this attitude very commonly among Marxian social- 
ists who believe that evolution is inevitably making for the social revo- 
lution, the cooperative commonwealth, the dictatorship of the proletariat. 
These and many other religious attitudes survive long after people feel 
that they have emancipated themselves from religious dogma. One form 
of such a survival is the religion of the State which is characteristic of cer- 
tain reactionary groups to-day. Another form may be found among rad- 
icals. There are many persons who became radicals when they become re- 
ligious liberals. They transferred the hope of redemption from the future 
world to the future of this world and their social creed may be a substi- 
tute for the older theological one. It is possible to find among radicals 
men who have precisely the same types of mental reaction as the funda- 
mentalists in religion. 


Now in this discussion I do not wish at all to suggest that religion 
should be abolished. I think it is psychologically necessary. Moreover, 
I do not mean that everybody who is religious has precisely the same 
psychological characteristics or has gone through the experiences which 
I have tried to analyze. The great majority of religionists experience re- 
demption from sin in only a very mild degree. Sin is not to them the im- 
mediate and personal reality which it is to more intense religionists. They 
are really followers and their religious life may be largely formal. But 
the mechanisms of religion are developed and its symbols created by the 
few who have passed through some such experience as I described. 


I said that 1 thought that religion is necessary. In fact, religion is 
an attempt to express something in our natures which is extra-rational. 
The extra-rational is a reality. It lies all about us. The uneonscious in 
its desire for security and self-expression is struggling for a satisfaction in 
life which is itself quite justifiable. Life is more than logic or utility. 
If it is to have any meaning we must create that meaning somehow, and 
religion is an attempt to do so. My point is that religion is poetry. Like 
science and art, it is one possible view which we may take of that which 
in itself is ineffable and unfathomable. Religion would make that mystery 
congenial to man. It maintains that it is so. And this is the function of 
its poetic conception of existence. Who knows but that this poetic con- 
ception, reached as it is like all poetry by unconscious motivation, may not 
be a true view of our world if properly understood. The world may be 
much more like a poem than like a machine. But we must not think that 
our poetic appreciations of the mystery of the world are the equivalents of 
the facts, with which we must deal. Neither may we in the name of religion 
hold beliefs which are contrary to the truths of science and of common 
sense, for that would be to lose all touch with reality. My point is that we 
should understand that religion is poetry and in so understanding it, we 
do not necessarily destroy it. The artist does not cease to be an artist 
when he knows that his artistic creations are symbols. These symbols 
may be even more significant when one understands the things which they 
represent. Psychological knowledge of religion ought to lead us to a 
better knowledge of self so that instead of being mere creatures of our 
unconscious impulses we may deliberately and wisely direct the fabrica- 
tions of our inner life toward those ends which will most enrich our 
existence. 


LECTURE XVI 
The Psychology of Politics. 


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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICS. 


ROFESSOR Charles E. Merriam of Chicago University, tells a 
story which illustrates the attitude of many people toward 
political life. The governor of a certain state, after his inauguration, 
instead of spending most of his time building up an organization for 
his own support, distributing appointments as rewards for party 
service, took the unusual course of turning his attention toward the 
task for which he was elected. The impression this behavior 
made upon the party manager is interesting. He said, “I simply do 
not understand the governor. He seems to take no interest in these 
appointments; spends all of his time thinking about bills in the legis- 
lature and about his speeches. He doesn’t seem to care a damn for 
politics.” This was doubtless an unusual governor, for persons are 
commonly elected to office in America not because of any qualifications 
they have for the performance of their official duties, but rather 
because of their expertness in the game of politics. 


Politics is one thing; state-craft is another, though the two often 
overlap. We expect the holder of an office to be primarily concerned 
with politics. Politics is his business. That is why we elect him. 
The office is merely that which makes the business pay. Of course, 
this business, like all business, has its serious side. But as its ends 
are not identical with those of the government, it may often interfere 
seriously with the latter. 


Hence we use the term “ playing politics.” We know pretty well 
what we mean by this term. The newspapers, in discussing affairs 
in Washington, sometimes call attention to the merits of an act or 
policy and its effect on the life of the country. More frequently, how- 
ever, they discuss such an act from the standpoint of its effect upon 
various interested groups or upon the public mind. When one’s 
official acts are motivated primarily by considerations of his own 
political fortune or that of his party, that is playing politics. When 
one is more concerned with manipulating people than with serving 
them, that is politics. We generally deplore the fact that certain 
public affairs, like education, are dragged into politics. Of course, 
politics is not confined to affairs of government. There can be much 
playing of politics in schools, colleges and labor unions; in fact, politics 
may appear in any form of human association where it is possible for 
some individuals to gain an advantage over others. 


It is in the affairs of government, however, that politics may best be 
studied. Many such studies have been made and the result has not been 
very flattering to democracy. Politics is not anywhere a spontaneous popu- 
lar activity. It is an industry, very much like the motion picture industry, 
with the notable exception that it is subsidized out of the public treasury. 
Just as the managers of the motion picture theatres strive to interest 
and amuse the public, so do the managers of politics. In both cases 
these managers are usually shrewd in their judgments as to what will 
catch the attention of the average man. Some times they are rather 
crude in their appeal to the man on the street. On the whole, the 


[221] 


222 


success of a manager in either of these industries indicates that he 
has a more realistic grasp than his competitors of the general level of 
mentality among the patrons of the industry. In both politics and 
the motion picture industry, the public performs a more or less passive 
role. It can, by giving or withholding applause, indicate its general 
approval of what has been provided for it. It performs a certain 
amount of selection by patronizing one theatre rather than another, 
invariably giving its patronage to the more sensational one. When 
the quality of the entertainment is so bad as to put its patrons on the 
defensive, the public may even welcome a censorship of movies or 
politics in order that it may be protected against itself. But it cannot 
be said that the public has very much to do with the producing end 
of either of these industries. Its place is to watch the performance 
and to pay up. This is frequently recognized in regard to politics. 


I remember an incident in an Illinois town in the campaign of 
1900. One of our political parties erected a large “wigwam” on a 
vacant lot and held frequent meetings there. On one occasion the 
greatest “rally”? of the campaign, there were present the candidates for 
the offices of vice-president and governor and many other important 
political figures. There was much speaking and the “ wigwam ” was 
so crowded that it was decided to hold two meetings, one in the after- 
noon and one at night. The county chairman of the party organiza- 
tion presided. In announcing the evening meeting he said: ‘“ Ladies 
and Gentlemen: I am authorized to announce that the next per- 
formance will begin at 8:00 o’clock.” The general laughter which 
followed this announcement indicated its truth, but that truth, how- 
ever, had no influence upon the election. The party which performed 
best won. 


The political life of the community is supposed to interest the 
whole population. But this is not the case. The whole population 
may suffer the ill effects of the political mis-management of public 
affairs, but the industry of politics though one of our largest indus- 
tries, appeals to comparatively few persons. I doubt if the politically 
interested public is as large as the theatre-going public, if we include 
within the latter the public to which the motion picture industry 
performs. Mr. Robert Michels, Professor of Political Economy of 
the University of Basle, has written an interesting book on political 
parties in Europe. He shows that everywhere the same condition 
obtains which we find in America. Only a small portion of the people 
have a lively interest in public affairs. This may be seen even in the 
most enthusiastic of parties, the Socialist Party. The most far-reach- 
ing and significant actions of that party are frequently decided upon 
by very small minorities. Here is a typical example: ‘The deputy 
Leonida Bissolati, a leading Italian Socialist and one of the founders 
of the party, was on November 5, 1905 (with other distinguished 
members) expelled from the party. The expulsion was effected at a 
meeting of the Roman branch. The full membership of this branch 
was 7/00, but only 100 were present at that meeting; of these, 55 voted 
for the exclusion and 45 against, 


223 


“In May, 1910, the same branch then containing about 600 mem- 
bers passed a resolution fiercely condemning the socialist deputies on 
account of their being too friendly with the minister. The resolution 
was carried by 41 votes against 24.”* Michels further calls attention 
to a fact which exists in the socialist party both in Europe and in 
America. The socialist party serves well to illustrate the point I am 
speaking about; first, because of the peculiar nature of its enroll- 
ment of its members; and second, because of the general belief in the 
greater devotion of the average member to his party. Michels notes 
that the enrolled party membership varies from one-tenth to one- 
thirtieth of the total socialist vote. 


A further illuminating fact is the short duration of party membership 
in an organization which makes an unusual appeal to the devotion of its 
members. Michaels gives the following figures of membership in the 
Socialist Party of Munich in 1906: 23% of the members had been in the 
party less than six months, 24% from six months to two years, 10% 
from two to three years, 15% from three to four years, making a total of 
72% who had been members less than four years. Only 1214% had 
remained as long as eight years. It may be said that perhaps there had 
been a vigorous campaign for membership just previous to 1906. There 
is, however, nothing to indicate that this is true. Michels says that the 
condition indicated here is general. Of course, many people outgrow the 
Socialist Party for reasons other than lack of devotion. Socialism is, 
from the psychological standpoint, something of an adolescent phenomenon. 
As Walter Weyl pointed out radicals frequently become “ tired ” at middle 
age. But it is still indicative of the general indifference of mankind to 
politics that the party which makes the strongest appeal to devotion 
cannot hold more than 72% of its membership for four years. I am sure 
that membership in the Republican and Democratic parties in America,—I 
mean passive, indifferent, occasionally voting membership,—is much longer 
than this. In fact, it tends to be life-long for some people and often 
hereditary, like membership in a church. This fact too is significant, 
for these parties require little of their members. The more indifferent the 
members are the better the leaders are pleased, if only the rank and file 
will come out on election day, eat what is set before it, ask no questions 
for conscience sake, and vote a straight ticket. 


I think that all who have tried to arouse public interest in really 
desirable measures are impressed with this general indifference. It is 
this indifference which, to a large extent, keeps the party system in 
America going. It is this indifference also which permits the survival of 
antiquated methods and ideas in our political life. During the war—l 
think it was in the spring of 1918, when Mr. Jonathan Day was Com- 
missioner of Markets in New York City—there was a serious food shortage 
and much profiteering due largely to the inadequate terminal facilities 
which permitted monopoly in the handling of food stuffs. The Commis- 
sioner found that to solve this problem it was necessary to establish 
municipal markets and terminals. He met with serious opposition and 
a number of us tried to get popular support for his project. A meeting 


* Michels, “ Political Parties,” pp. 50-51. 


224 


was arranged and held in a large hall on the East Side. As I remember, 
the hall seated about twelve hundred people. There were about fifty 
persons present. Now this was a matter that seriously concerned the 
welfare of the masses. Yet municipal terminals are not as interesting 
as a base ball match or a prize fight. The public will attend a meeting 
in large numbers if they expect to see a popular hero and will applaud 
him to the limit of their endurance, especially if his address is filled with 
platitudes. But serious public measures demand some exercise of thought 
and thinking seems to be out of place in politics. Even the little effort 
required of the average voter—like registering and voting once in four 
years at a national election—is too great for many. If I am correctly 
informed, even in such elections only about one-half of the eligible voters 
cast their sacred ballots. 


Government by the masses does not exist, and never has existed. I am 
not saying this in any spirit of criticism. The political performance is 
so often displeasing that many people become bored. ‘The results of a 
popular election are frequently so disappointing that many become dis- 
couraged. Moreover, the idea that man is primarily a political animal 
is a fiction. People are busy. They cannot, most of them, give the time 
to inform themselves as to issues or men. Neither can they keep an 
everlasting eye on legislatures and administrators to see what they are 
doing. In one small town in Illinois I made a little canvass among my 
personal friends. All of them were educated men. I found that not 
10% of them knew the names of their representatives in Congress or in 
the state legislature. I have tried to give attention to public affairs for 
a number of years. I do not believe that I have ever attended a primary 
or an election where I knew anything about half the men whose names 
were on the ballot. 


Why there is the “ Political” Boss. 


This ignorance is perhaps inexcusable now that the voter has 
at his disposal the excellent guidance furnished by such organiza- 
tions as the Citizen’s Union in New York and the League of Women 
Voters. Such organizations are performing an excellent service and their 
counsel is trustworthy to a high degree. But evidently this advice is not 
taken by the rank and file. I uniformly find that when, after consulting 
the best sources of information obtainable, I cast my vote for a candidate, 
it is his opponent who is elected. My father, who was a very diligent 
student of politics and very conscientious, never voted for a presidential 
candidate who was elected, except Garfield, who was afterwards shot. 
Thoughtful people can hardly be blamed for a loss of faith in politics. 
I do not think, however, that we should directly blame the masses for the 
present state of political affairs. About the only role the mass plays is 
that the average man becomes the person to whom political propaganda 
is addressed. Perhaps if the mass as a whole in the present stage of 
our development were more actively interested, the political appeal would 
be on a still lower level. Who can tell? 


The result of the passive attitude of the masses toward politics is 
that this industry must be conducted by men who make a trade of it. 
To bea politician is just as much a special calling as to be a bricklayer or a 


225 


barber. The active political party consist of the special workers who 
are on the inside or think they are. These workers are arranged in a sort 
of hierarchy with the ward committeeman at the bottom and the national 
committeeman at the top. The number of those engaged actively in this 
industry has been variously computed. Bryce some years ago estimated 
it in America at 200,000. Professor Merriam gives the figure as 600,000. 
These 600,000 persons run the political life of America. Orders are 
passed down from above and it is very seldom indeed that the voting 
public seriously interferes. 


It is this habit of looking to the men higher up in the party machine, 
rather than to the rank and file, which makes possible the political 
“boss.” The power of the boss in the party organization is a psychological 
curiosity. The political boss differs from the boss in other industries in 
that he is not usually in a position to discharge those under him. He owes 
his power and influence to the men he bosses. Yet there is perhaps no 
form of human association where obedience is more implicit and unques- 
tioning, unless it be the army. 


One would think that the local politician, being as he is in close 
touch with the electorate, would consult his constituents rather than take 
orders from one further removed whose influence consists in the voluntary 
obedience of the local party workers under his control. This would be 
the case if the people really governed. Yet a boss may dominate the 
political activities of a city or state for years; his rule may be autocratic 
and notoriously corrupt, a large section of the public may be opposed to 
him, he may grow to be wealthy out of political spoils, out of personal 
dealings with corrupt “big business ””—which the party in its platform 
may denounce. He may thrive at the expense of the effort of party 
workers who have little share in the material benefits which he enjoys. 
Yet when ‘his interests are at stake he has only to pass the word down 
the line to “the boys” and they will work for him day and night, often 
without real knowledge of what his “ game”’ is. 


This fact is often explained as a phenomenon of personal leadership. I 
shall have something to say on that subject later. There is more here than 
mere personal power of command, the little politician has his own ego 
to satisfy, he is flattered to be known by the boss, to be able to speak 
of him as “ Bill” or “ Charley.” In the party itself there are always 
factions, the boss is a leader of his faction. Factional struggles give rise 
to the crowd mind, each crowd loves to dominate because such dominance 
serves the egoism of its members. The issue at stake is insignificant; 
what counts is to keep the crowd together. Personal judgment on the 
part of a party worker is taboo. It would tend to disintegrate the gang— 
“ Hail, hail the gang’s all here.” Men love to be in the gang—something 
from which others are excluded. The price of being im is that one do no 
original thinking but obey the crowd will as expressed by the boss. The 
party worker who appealed to the electorate would be regarded with 
suspicion. It would be a vain appeal, moreover, for the mass, while they 
have a voice, have really little to say. The rank and file always wait 
for an issue to be presented to them, and if an ordinary citizen begins 
to show too much interest in local party affairs he is regarded as an 
interloper. The “ gang” becomes a kind of trade union, the mere voter 


is something of a “ scab.” 


220 


I recall the first primary meeting I ever attended. This was before 
the days of the direct primary. Notice was posted around the town that 
there would be a meeting in the Court House of the citizens belonging to 
a certain party. I was just 21 years old and had been brought up with a 
keen political conscience and sense of public duty. Consequently, I went 
to this meeting with a sense of solemn pride in being at last a voter. 
I expected to see the hall filled with the free citizens of a great democracy, 
taking counsel together in the interest of the public welfare, listening to 
words of wisdom that should fall from the lips of our most respected 
men. I was surprised and a little chagrined to find that this was net 
the case. I found a small group of forty or fifty habitual court house 
loafers and a half dozen lawyers who by no means represented the best 
type of their profession. The lawyers were talking quietly together in 
one corner of the room, and when I entered one or two of them looked 
up in a half amused way, as if to say, “ What on earth is this college 
boy doing here?” Presently the meeting was called to order. The 
chairman asked if anyone had any nominations to make for the county 
ticket and for the various conventions of the party. One of the lawyers 
then read a list of names in a rapid and mumbling voice. Printed copies 
of this list were hurriedly handed to those present, then immediately 
collected and the meeting adjourned. 


No great modification of this practice has been achieved even by the 
direct primary for the reason that nomination is a costly matter and few 
people have their names on a primary ticket without previous consulta- 
tion with the party leaders. Politics in America is “ fixed,” and fixed 
by those on the inside. With all the exigencies of election, there is for 
those who live by it in politics probably less risk than in any other business. 


Frequently a faction in one party will make a friendly alliance with 
a similar faction in the opposing party, each aiding the other in the case 
of need, thus bi-partisan groups grow up which in spite of all the noise 
of a political campaign and the exigencies of an election may keep very 
much the same group of bosses in power behind the scenes. Some months 
ago I listened to a conversation between two former local politicians who 
belonged to opposite parties. In the office of the first there was an 
autographed picture of a notorious leader of the old days. The second said 
“ Did you know him? So did1. We were supposed to be political enemies 
down in the .... Ward, but we often had friendly dealings. In fact, 
he often used to help our boys out and we were frequently able to be of 
service to him.” 


Crowd Psychology and Leadership. 


Various studies have been made of the psychology of leadership. 
Freud seems to think that the leader stands toward his crowd as a 
sort of imaginary father. I am not sure that this is the case. It is 
not so much fatherly qualities that gain leadership as the fact that the 
leader is representative or symbolic of some of the unconscious wishes 
of his crowd. The leader is the man who captures the imagination 
of his fellows in much the same way as the stage hero captures it. 
The followers give him preferment and in so doing unconsciously 
put themselves in his place. Most of the political leaders of America 


223 


have been great orators; others have been journalists. Many presi- 
dents of the United States have been distinguished for military service. 
If one notes the prevailing forms of thought in political oratory or 
journalism, it will be seen that always the orator or journalist flatters 
his crowd, speaks to it in time- worn platitudes, expresses its preju- 
dices and gives them an appearance of sanctity. 


Thus the crowd in honoring a leader really honors itself. The 
same is true of the other qualities of leadership in politics. Celebrity 
is always an asset to the political leader. Michels speaks of the 
outrageous theatricalism of Ferdinand Lasalle, the famous socialist 
leader in the middle of the 19th century. One way Lasalle used to 
fascinate democratic audiences was to picture the day when he, 
Lasalle, would ride into Berlin as president of the first German 
republic in a chariot drawn by six white horses. Theodore Roosevelt 
knew how to keep himself in the public eye with spectacular words 
and deeds. The veneration of the rank and file for celebrity is interest- 
ing for our psychological study of politics. Not long ago I read in a 
paper published in Madras, India, an article protesting against the 
alleged intolerance of some of Gandhi’s followers. The writer said 
that Gandhi’s picture was carried in religious processions along with 
the images of popular gods, and those who did not worship were 
insulted and abused in much the same way as we treat a man who 
does not take off his hat when a flag is carried through the streets. 


In the worship of both Gandhi’s picture and of the flag the crowd 
is worshipping itself and is compelling all others to worship it under 
the appearance of giving obeisance to the crowd symbol. It is for 
the same psychological reason that every political party promises its 
adherents a sweeping victory in its election. A striking illustration 
of this self worship through the use of symbols is given by Michels. 
He says that in a certain socialist parade in Sicily, there were carried 
at the front of the procession high above the heads of the crowd three 
symbols: a large picture of Karl Marx, the holy crucifix, and the red 
flag, thus indicating what I have said before that socialism has some 
affinities with the religious attitudes. One of the things they have in 
common is the wish to overcome the world. But we are talking about 
the political leader, and I am saying that the psychology of his leader- 
ship is that he becomes himself a symbol of the wish of his crowd to 
be important. Not all men can do this. One must make himself 
appear both representative and distinguished at the same time. He 
must give the impression that he, a common horny-handed son of toil, 
by the mere exercise of qualities which all sons of toil possess, is just 
as good as the great, and so make his followers feel that his advance- 
ment in the world is symbolic of the imagined advancement of every one of 
them. Why do you suppose that Tammany politicians on parade on 
Fifth Avenue always wear silk hats and frock coats? They know 
that many a man will say, “ Do you see Mike marching there? Well, 
he is one of the boys. Came up from the old neighborhood. Atta- 
boy, Mike!” 


Now in this attitude of the crowd there is a certain amount of 
generosity, a generosity which is frequently exploited because it is so 


228 


closely associated with self identification of the crowd with the hero. 
The heroes the crowd recognizes are the heroes which the crowd 
itself creates. |The crowd is so wonderful that he who succeeds in 
capturing its imagination must be a wonderful man. And in his 
greatness, each member of the crowd glories. Thus the crowd does 
not recognize greatness other than which comes from itself, and for 
this reason prize-fighters, movie-actors, baseball batters, and politicians 
are, with a few exceptions, all very much of the same type. 


The Place of Principle in Politics. 


The psychology of leadership in politics goes far to account for 
the fact that it is personalities, not principles, which, in the main, 
influence popular choice. Often, Merriam says, in fact, almost 
half of the time in the last 46 years, the people of this country 
have elected a president of one party and a congress of the 
opposing party, or have given the president’s party so small a leader- 
ship in congress that he was practically powerless. Another proof 
that principles do not carry much weight is the fact of the geographical 
distribution of political opinion in America. In the campaign of 1920, 
out of 531 electoral votes 3/72 were decided before the campaign began 
and before any one knew what the issues in it would be. They would 
have been the same, no matter what the issues had been, for the vote 
of over half the people of this country was decided sixty years ago. 


Merriam says that in the 32 campaigns in the history of this 
country, clean cut party issues dividing the voters have been presented 
in only 16 cases. He gives an outline of the typical party platform. 
It consists of: 


The elaboration of the record of the party. 

Denunciation of the opposition party. 

General declarations regarding democracy and the nation. 
General references to certain non-party issues. 
Expressions of sympathy. 

Non-committal reference to certain disputed issues. 
Definite issues. 


ee PONT Fe 


Our author says that in 1888 there were 19 planks in the repub- 
lican platform and 12 in the democratic. Of these, nine were the same 
in both platforms, and in only one was there a significant difference. 
The parties agreed on the maintenance of the union (which must have 
been a live issue since the Civil War had been over 22 years!) They 
agreed on a homestead policy, on the early admission of territories, on 
civil service reform, on pensions, on the trusts, on sympathy with 
Ireland, on the exclusion of foreign contract labor. The Republican 
differed from the Democratic in declaring for personal rights and the 
free ballot. The Democratic brought out the important and relevant 
matter of adherence to a written constitution with specific powers. 
The Republican platform declared against Mormonism (obviously a 
national menance!) and in favor of bi-metallism, an issue upon which 
it took an opposite side eight years later. It declared for reduction 


229 


of the cost of postage stamps, put itself on record in favor of the 
Monroe Doctrine and the protection of fisheries and added, to give 
the whole a still higher moral flavor, a non-committal prohibition 
plank which read as follows: “ The first concern of all good govern- 
ments is the sobriety of the people and the purity of their homes. 
The Republican Party cordially sympathizes with all wise and well- 
directed efforts for the promotion of temperance and morality.” 


The two parties differed in only one important matter: the tariff. 
Of course, the tariff was the real issue. It meant business profits for 
somebody. Often the issue is not so clear as this. In the campaign 
of 1920 the issue seems to have been hatred of the person of Woodrow 
Wilson who was not, at that time, a candidate. You will remember 
seeing great signs posted on all the bill boards which read, ‘“ No more 
wibble and wobble.” I am told that this was a campaign slogan to 
get which the party employed a great advertising company, and that 
it influenced thousands of votes. Its irrelevance is obvious. The 
slogan evidently referred to the record of Mr. Wilson, yet at the same 
time political speakers were saying that Mr. Wilson was a domin- 
eering, tyrannical, uncompromising idealist, who, once he made up his 
mind, could not be moved. And the pathos of such a slogan is that 
if “ wibble and wobble” means anything it was the Harding Adminis- 
tration which later “wibbled and wobbled.” What else could a 
wibbling and wobbling electorate expect? 


The contemplation of party history makes it rather easy to predict 
some of the planks of the party platforms in the campaign of 1924.* 
Both parties will express sympathy for labor, while warning the 
public against the dangers of radicalism. Both will congratulate the 
Irish Free State on its successful establishment. Both will be non- 
committal about the Volstead act, pointing out the moral evils that 
follow disrespect for law. Both will deal with the oil scandal by 
warning the public of the dangers of corruption in high office. As to 
foreign policy, the Republicans will say that the peace of the world 
demands that America play her part in the fellowship of the nations; 
that some association of the peoples of the world for the preservation 
of peace would seem to be advisable, but that America must be saved 
from entangling alliances, the Monroe Doctrine protected and our 
domestic interests safeguarded. The Democrats will say that, whereas 
our domestic interests must be safeguarded, the Monroe Doctrine 
protected, and America kept from entangling alliances, nevertheless 
the Democratic party stands for the great principle that the peace of 
the world can only be maintained by some kind of a league or asso- 
ciation among the nations of the world. 


So far we have spoken only of general principles of political 
opinion and leadership. The history of political practice everywhere 
is unflattering to democracy. The great show of platitudinous prin- 
ciples professed by party organizations merely covers a thinly dis- 
guised effort to gain special advantages for some individuals. As 
Merriam says, “ Each campaign consists of two parts: One is directed 
upon an appeal to the common interest on the theory that there are 
no classes, no races, no religions, no sections, no special interests, but 


* This lecture was given at Cooper Union, New York, April 4, 1924. 


230 


that the common interest of all will be the criterion by which each 
voter will decide his party allegiance. The other section of the cam- 
paign is based upon the opposite theory: that the whole electorate 
is made up of a long series of special interests which must be shown 
their special advantage in the support of the particular party and its 
candidates to obtain their support.” 


In practice, therefore, politics both here and abroad is the story 
of a long series of acts of corruption and misgovernment, special 
favoritism, incompetence, shameful lobbying, hastily drawn and ill 
considered legislation, outrageous extravagance, the levying of 
tribute from the underworld for its protection, the insincere enforce- 
ment of laws, many of which should never have been passed and 
cannot honestly be enforced; in a word, the general misuse of the 
institution and functions of government by men who were incapable 
of statesmanship, and saw in political affairs nothing but the oppor- 
tunity for advancement of someone’s special interest. All this has 
been only too characteristic of political life everywhere, from the 
commonplace corruption in the government of most cities up to a 
recent cabinet of the “ best minds.” 


It is a disheartening story. We may take some consolation in the 
fact that the life of the people goes on in spite of politics. A man recently 
returned from a business trip to Honduras tells me that on one occasion 
while talking to a merchant, he heard a great clatter in the street, 
together with much shooting. The American was frightened and asked 
the merchant what on earth was happening. Was it a revolution? The 
merchant said, “ Oh, yes, that is just the politicians passing by. We will 
close the blinds and do business as usual.” We cannot, however, so blandly 
ignore the behavior of our politicians. For we have see in recent years 
how politicians may well nigh wreck our civilization. 


Politics and Democracy. 


What makes politics what it is? There are two ready-made answers, 
given from opposite standpoints and both inadequate. The first is the 
answer of the aristocrat. It says, that the trouble with politics is democ- 
racy; that democracy can never be anything but corrupt because it is 
government by the lower classes. But aristocracies too may be notoriously 
corrupt. Witness the behavior of the Russian aristocracy under the old 
regime. England, whose government is a combination of democracy and 
aristocracy, is doubtless the cleanest and most competent government in 
the world. It appears to fall below its high standard only during those 
periods when the business classes gain the upper hand. 


The other answer is that of the socialists, who maintain that political 
corruption is a direct result of the capitalist system. There is much truth 
in this, but, like most socialist statements, it oversimplifies the case. There 
are many other factors, psychological in their nature, which, if I had 
time, I could show enter into the situation. Corruption is not the whole 
story in politics and may itself be correlated with the ignorance and 
cupidity of the average man. Capitalism may itself be an effect of the 
same psychological elements which have produced our present political 
forms of behavior. It is said that if we could remove the temptations 


231 


set before our politicians by profit-seeking business men, all would be 
well. But those who say this forget that temptation would still exist. 
Wherever there is power over men, those who have such power will be 
tempted to make it a vested interest of their own. ‘The situation in 
Russia today is proof of this fact. 


There are three elements in politics which I wish to discuss very 
briefly. The first is the politician. There are, of course, many notable 
exceptions to what I am going to say. But, in a sense, politics has 
become a profession. This profession, however, differs from other pro- 
fessions in that it has few or no recognized professional standards. The 
physician, the professor (and to some extent even the lawyer) is answer- 
able to his colleagues for his conduct. Each of these professions, therefore, 
has a certain professional ethic. I do not say that this ethic is universally 
lived up to. But if anyone flagrantly betrays a professional trust he is 
answerable to his colleagues, answerable, that is, to men who are specially 
trained, have a sense of responsibility for the profession, and know 
enough to pass rather intelligent judgment upon one another. The rogue 
may be expelled from the practice of his profession and the incompetent 
excluded. It is not so with the politician or the labor leader. The polli- 
tician makes his appeal to the undifferentiated mass. Moreover, there are, 
for entrance into the profession of politics, no intellectual standards or 
requirements as in other professions. Consequently, the men who enter 
this profession are, on the whole, men of a lower type of mentality. 
Psychologically speaking, they belong to a lower type of men. Now, 
when these two factors enter into the selection of the personel of a 
profession, they cannot but degrade it. The fact is that a high minded, 
well-educated sincere man is at a decided disadvantage in politics as in 
all things where he must make his appeal to the mass as a whole. Victory 
is on the side of sensation, superficiality, and humbug. 


Second, let us consider briefly politics as an expression of the 
psychology of the people. Itis often said that people have the government 
they deserve. I am not sure that this is the case. It is not true that 
the masses are necessarily corrupt, though there is a certain amount of 
“cussedness’’ in the nature of us all. The difficulty lies in the type of 
appeal to which the masses uniformly respond. This is due not only 
to popular ignorance, but also to the desire of crowds to be flattered. The 
very sense of power which men have when they get together in a party 
gives strength to their feeling of self-importance. They wish to hear 
those things which encourage them in their protest against the feeling 
of inferiority. Again, popular thinking is highly irrelevant, substituting 
for the results of behavior various made-in-advance principles which really 
have nothing to do with the case in hand. Consequently, political thought 
and propaganda seldom rise above the level of commercial advertising. 
There is a touch of insincerity in almost everything with which men 
strive to reach the masses. Catch phrases, over-statement of fact, broad 
generalizations, the trite, the obsolete, the platitudinous, commonly deter- 
mine our political choices, and I do not see how this situation may be 
remedied except by a new and more self-analytical type of education. 


In an earlier lecture we learned that there are two kinds of thinking— 
problem-solving thinking and rationalization. The latter does not have 


232 


the function of adapting the organism to environmental situations; it is the 
mere fabrication of ideas which will at once disguise and make plausible 
some unconscious wish. Public opinion concerning political matters is 
seldom problem-solving thinking. It is rationalization—men do not think 
out political problems, they merely repeat their dogmas, resort to special 
pleading, cleverly impute to their opponents the unconscious motives they 
themselves entertain. The function of party opinion is to hold the members 
in the crowd, make converts of the credulous, represent the party’s will 
to rule as the triumph of a great cause. Its function is to protest the 
“purity” of the party’s aims, justify and intensify an artificial fervor of 
partisan strife and enable the average man to keep up his fiction of 
superiority. “The People” thinking in these ways imagines its voice to be 
the voice of God, believes it is giving expression to sacred truths, when 
it is merely priding itself on the sheer power of its numbers and pooling 
the manifestation of its egotism. As I have said, when numbers alone 
count, it is the mediocre man who must be cajoled, his mental qualities 
set the standard and must be glorified with big words. True distinction of 
worth is rated low, even resented. The real interest of the public is 
not good government, but that which causes the average man to feel himself 
important. Perhaps it was an error to extend the franchise to all men 
regardless of their mental capacity; though, I do not see just how, at pres- 
ent, we could find a criterion of mental capacity which could be justly 
applied in determining who should vote. 


Finally, there is politics as a method of government. Certainly the 
party system, as we have worked it out in America, makes the party itself 
an end, and is to be held accountable for much of the misgovernment in 
this country. Government as government has very little to do with the 
ends of practical politics as we have known those ends. Strangely enough, 
though the average American is indifferent to politics, yet he is politically 
minded to an unfortunate degree. We look to the government for all 
sorts of things which government can never, by its very nature, satisfac- 
torily perform. In fact, government is perhaps the least lovely thing that 
democracy has achieved, though democratic government has doubtless 
been conducive to the achievement of whatever human advancement in 
other directions society has in recent years attained. Even this, however, is 
a debatable point. I am anything but an anarchist, but I hold with Jefferson 
that “that government is best which governs least.’”’ Government must 
be rigidly restricted or majorities will utterly crush the life out of the 
minorities which oppose them. And certainly the will of the majority is 
a poor method of determining the right policy of government. A project 
should gain no sanctity because a thousand stupid and uneducated men 
may favor it in opposition to the judgment of 100 wise men. And under 
our present political methods, not only majorities, but also organized 
minorities may practice coercion in support of ill-advised measures. 


The world today is so highly organized, political policy may have 
such far-reaching and unforseen effects, a bit of stupidity may be so 
universally disastrous, that it stands to reason that the control of 
affairs can no longer, with safety, be left to the mercy of political 
practices, as we have known them. If politics can not in some way 
be made to encourage the leadership and control of the higher types 


233 


of men and women in communities, democracy probably will not 
survive the century. Thinking people must make an effort to see that 
the profession of politics acquires a professional ethic, in the light of 
which certain practices become reprehensible. The public must be 
taught to stop worshipping itself. If it must have its self-flattery, 
it should get it otherwise than at the expense of the future of the state. 
It must not forget the psychological fact that social behavior 1s conditioned 
by the kind of man in whose interest it is performed. In politics as else- 
where, the important question is ‘“ Who goes there?” 


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LECTURE XVII 
Are there Psychological differences of Race? 





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ARE THERE PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES 
OF RACE? 


HIS subject, like religion, is difficult to discuss. Each of us 
necessarily belongs to some race, some of us to more than one. 
We cannot view the characteristics of our own race impartially since 
they are also our own inherited traits. The idea of our race involves the 
idea of our ego. Every race considers itself superior. Anything that 
reflects upon its dignity gives us an inferiority complex. One of the 
surest ways of offending a man is to suggest to him that he belongs 
to an inferior race. If you doubt this, try it on an Irishman. The 
Negro race in this country has long been put in an inferior position 
and there is a widespread belief that this race is physically and men- 
tally inferior to the white race. Whether the negroes themselves 
accept this idea of inferiority, we cannot say, because, with the racial 
difference there has been also involved the institution of slavery. 
Certain it is that the spirit of the negroes in this country is changing. 
They are becoming race-conscious. There is a tendency among them 
to protest against the white man’s assumption of superiority. What 
the future of this protest may be we do not yet know. But it is doubt- 
ful if negroes of the next generation will endure some of the things 
their people have endured in the past. They will insist that they are 
just as good as white people. An insistence which is certainly in 
accord with democratic principles, yet it may deeply offend that ele- 
ment of the white race whose own protest against the feeling of in- 
feriority consists in believing that, whatever else may be lacking, the 
lowest white man is “ better than a nigger.” 


A similar protest against the white man’s assumption of racial 
superiority is a movement now taking place in Asia. When Mr. 
Wadia, the well-known Indian editor, spoke to us two years ago at 
Cooper Union, he told us that all over Asia there was an uprising of 
the darker peoples, especially of India and of the Orient. These peo- 
ple have been deeply offended, and made to feel inferior, by the 
Colonial politics of the Europeans. And this even though the pres- 
ence of the white man has, in some cases, been to the economic ad- 
vantage of the Asiatics. The feeling of resentment toward the white 
man is so great that we are told the time may come when a united 
Asia may take advantage of some moment of weakness and not only 
expel the white man from the continent of Asia, but actually threaten 
the very existence of European civilization. 


We see an instance of this race antipathy in the Gandhi move- 
ment in India. This movement is not directly inspired by economic 
or political considerations, important as these are in many ways. 
The British authorities are doubtless the most benevolent, tolerant, 
constructive alien rulers in history. Wherever the British flag has 
gone, there is cleanliness, order, peace, education. The conduct of 


[237] 


238 


British affairs is the least corruptible that has ever existed in a vast 
empire. Even though the purpose of the British in dealing with 
darker races is that of economic exploitation, it has, in most cases, ac- 
tually improved the material conditions of the subjugated races. This 
improvement is shown in the fact that the population of India has 
more than doubled under British rule. There has been, on the whole, 
a higher standard of living than that which existed before the British 
entered India. But there is one fact which, though it would seem 
incidental, is of great importance. British authorities cannot prevent 
English traders or Tommy Atkins, when off duty, putting on an air 
of superiority and calling the natives “niggers.” The consequent 
resentment gradually grows until it becomes a storm of indignation. 
Gandhi’s followers would have done with the white man and all his 
works, 


Some people see in all this a serious menace to civilization. They 
even speak of the passing of the white race. Doubtless such persons are 
unduly alarmed. This alarm is expressed by the popular American 
writer, Lothrop Stoddard, whose two books, “The Rising Tide of 
Color” and “The Revolt Against Civilization,’ have had a wide 
circulation. According to the first book, the white race is menaced 
from without, and according to the second, it is menaced from within. 
Hence, the problem of race becomes a problem of social psychology 
and deserves a discussion in our course of studies. I will first state 
the issue as the race psychologists have presented it. Secondly, I 
will discuss the case in the light of such concrete psychological in- 
formation as we may have concerning the subject. Thirdly, I will 
strive to state what is the real psychological problem of race. 


Now let us see what may be said concerning the psychological 
difference of race and the possible effect of such difference upon the 
white man’s civilization. No one will seriously deny that there are 
physical differences of race; differences in the color of the skin, the 
texture of the hair, the facial angle, the shape of the skull, the forma- 
tion of the lips, the structure of the skeleton, have long been noticed. 
Of these probably the most noteworthy are the differences in shape of 
the skull. The so-called black race is characterized by a long head, 
the oriental or yellow race by a round or short head, and the white 
race by an oval head. It must, however, be said that there is much 
overlapping with respect to this characteristic, and within each of 
the races there are certain marked differences with regard viz, to the 
formation of the skull. The question as to the alleged physical in- 
feriority of the black race is commonly answered by the anthropolo- 
gists in the negative. Negroes are very susceptible to infectious dis- 
eases in white men’s civilizations. But this does not mean that they 
would have the same low resistance in an environment more congenial 
to them. They are physically strong. They have some characteristics 
which would indicate a racial superiority. Superiority is generally 
taken as indicative of the differences between men and the higher 
apes. In two or three respects, the negroes are further differentiated 
from apes than white men are. The skull is longer; also they have 
fuller lips. I understand, furthermore, that the length of the legs 


239 


compared to that of the trunk is greater, and this in marked contrast 
to the proportionate distribution of stature among apes. 


Within the white race itself there are physical differences. The 
white race in Europe may be divided into three general branches: 
The Mediterranean, the Alpine, and the Nordic. The Mediterranean 
race is generally short of stature. It has rather sallow skin. The fea- 
tures are delicate and the head is fairly long. The Alpine race is 
short and thick-set. The complexion is dark, limbs stocky, and the 
head is the shortest of any branch of the white race. The Nordic 
race is prevailingly blonde. When the Nordic stock is pure, its indi- 
viduals are tall, have light wavy hair, blue eyes, marked physical 
strength and long heads. The face is straight, the chin rather promi- 
nent. The Swede is typical of this best type, the peasant of South- 
ern Germany of the Alpine type, the southern Italian of the Medi- 
terranean type. In general, the geographical distribution of these 
branches of the race is as follows: Draw a line from Moscow west to 
the Coast of Brittany in France, and from there back southeast to 
Athens. The persons north of this wedge are prevailingly Nordic. 
Those living within the angle which I have indicated and also in- 
habiting Southern Russia and the Balkans are prevailingly Alpine. 
Those who live south of the lower line, that is, in Spain, Southern 
France, Italy and part of Greece, together with about half the popula- 
tion of Ireland and 20 per cent of the population of England and 
Wales, are Mediteranean. 


Now it is said that where there are such marked physical differ- 
ences, there must be corresponding psychological differences. Let us 
look at the argument as presented by those who hold that there are 
such differences. These differences are said to be manifest in the 
different types of civilization which the various races have developed, 
as, for instance, the civilization of China and our own. Against this 
Wwe may raise the contention of some anthropologists and sociologists 
that the characteristics of a civilization are determined by the geo- 
graphical environment. Such was the view of Herbert Spencer and 
Grant Allen. This argument was, to my mind however, answered 
quite effectively by William James. I would suggest that the student 
read the essay, “The Great Man and His Environment,” published 
by James in the book which bears the title ““The Will to Believe.” 
James showed that this environmentalist argument is entirely too 
general; that while geographical conditions may have some effect 
upon the civilization, yet the advancement of the arts and culture in 
general is achieved by great men, the unique and creative individuals, 
of each community, and that geographical conditions cannot explain 
individual variation among the people of a given locality. It may 
further be said that if geographical conditions determine civilization, 
it would be hard to explain the rise and decline of civilization in a 
given country. Compare the type of civilization in the Greece of to- 
day with that which existed in the Periclean age; no one will deny 
that there has been a great decline. The geographical conditions have 
not changed in the last 2,000 years, but the racial stock which in- 
habits Greece has changed. The decline in civilization, whether or 


240 


not it is the result of this change in racial stock, has certainly accom- 
panied such change both in Greece and elsewhere. It was this fact 
which led Count Gobineau in the early Nineteenth Century to formulate his 
theory of the relation of race to civilization. I believe that most of 
those who write upon the problem of race have derived their ideas 
from Gobineau’s works. In substance, Gobineau argues as follows: 


Some races are essentially superior to others. Throughout his- 
tory one of these superior races—I don’t believe Gobineau uses the 
term “ Nordic,” but he means the northern or pure Aryan race—has 
played the role of the creator of civilizations. In fact it is argued 
that high civilizations everywhere have been the achievement of 
wandering bands of these Aryan peoples. Conquering the native 
stock, these Aryans are said to have made themselves the ruling class 
and with their genius for government and for the arts of civilization 
they have, so long as they kept their racial stock pure, forced upon 
inferior peoples their own forms of behavior or civilization. When 
races are mixed the superior qualities of this alleged Aryan race are 
lost. Gobineau finds that the civilizations of Greece and Rome, the 
earlier civilizations of the Mediterranean, even those of the Far East, 
have had their rise and decline coincident with the dominance and 
later decay of this Aryan stock. The cause of the downfall of civ- 
ilizations is accordingly said to be the result of race mixture. Over 
the heads of the darker plebeian masses this pure white race has 
thrown itself like a bridge over a torrent. The inferior racial stock 
beats against the foundations of this bridge, seeking to overthrow 
it. Accordingly it is said that the masses of the common people never 
were really civilized, never have understood what civilization is. 
They have remained rather sullen and resentful while the superior 
race has imposed its culture upon them and they are ready to over- 
throw that race in the first moment of its weakness. The moment for 
the catastrophe comes, it is said, when the dominant race becomes 
weak, losing its characteristic racial traits by interbreeding with the 
conquered peoples. 


Something like this theory was also held by Nietzsche, whose 
“blond beast” of pure northern stock was held to be the source of 
civilization and the dominant class in history. The difference between 
this pure northern and the conquered peoples is to Nietzsche’s mind 
the difference between the aristocrat and the plebeian. In other 
words, Nietzsche holds that there is an actual superiority in the so- 
called upper classes and that this superiority is the result of difference 
in race. 


The theories of Madison Grant, Lothrop Stoddard and Professor 
William McDougall, are all very much like those I have just sketched. 
Stoddard’s argument is typical. As we showed earlier in the lecture, 
he divides the European peoples into three races: A Mediterranean 
race, an Alpine race and a Nordic race. He says that the Mediter- 
fanean race is temperamentally emotional, passionate, excitable, lack- 
ing in stability and in tenacity, somewhat incapable of severe dis- 
cipline and lacking in genius for government—in fact he says that the 
Mediterranean race has never succeeded in establishing a stable gov- 


241 


ernment, that its chief achievements are the result rather of its sense 
of beauty, which is very keen, and of its artistic gifts. This statement 
at first appears quite plausible. The popular idea of the typical Ital- 
ian or Spaniard is more or less in accord with what Stoddard says. 
Nevertheless these terms are altogether too vague. Just what does 
one mean when he talks about a race being. temperamentally emo- 
tional? McDougall uses some such term as this to characterize the 
Nordics, among whom he says suicide and other evidences of brood- 
ing emotionalism are very common. Moreover, I wonder how true 
Stoddard’s argument is. Does history bear him out when he says that 
the Mediterranean peoples have never produced a stable government? 
It is probably begging the question to say that the Roman Empire 
was created by Nordic peoples. The likenesses of the rulers which we 
have on coins and in works of sculpture do not bear this out; and 
certainly the Roman Empire was a stable government, probably the 
most stable government in all history. The same is true of the Roman 
Catholic Church, which as a political institution certainly shows that 
the Mediterranean peoples have the capacity for discipline and or- 
ganization. The degree of discipline in the French army during the 
recent war was noted by many writers. And when we talk about 
stable government I am not sure that I know just what we mean. Is 
our own stable? The genius of the English race is supposed to exist 
in its ability to govern, but I cannot believe that we are justified in 
saying that it is at the present time making a tremendous success 
of government in Washington. 


Stoddard says the Alpine race is stolid, unimaginative, very 
gregarious; that it is unwarlike, clinging to the soil with dogged en- 
durance; in other words, the typical European peasant is an Alpine. 
This race has been conquered, it is said, again and again by the 
Nordics, but it always pushes back the conquering race, mixing with 
it and finally crowding it out. However, its one achievement is its 
gradual extension over the territory formerly held by Nordics. Ac- 
cording to Stoddard, this Alpine race has never contributed anything 
to civilization, either to the arts or to the sciences. 


Again I have the impression that such writing is altogether too 
much of an over-simplification. Here again the terms are vague; few 
facts are brought up to support them. Indeed, I imagine that a strong 
case could be made out for the cultural superiority of Alpines. The 
Italian Renaissance was achieved by a mixed people, partly of Alpine 
and partly of Mediterranean stock. When we raise such a question 
as: Has a people imagination? the psychologist is somewhat bewildered. 
For if this term means anything, I should say that the colorful 
life, the folk-songs and dances and mystical religion of Austrian and 
Tyrolean peasants would have to be regarded as indications that these 
people have imagination. Stoddard says that the Germans are largely 
Alpine. If so, how about German music? Recently it has been 
shown that there is a very large Alpine strain in the Hebrew people. 
It is said that only a small portion of the Jews of to-day are truly of 
Semitic descent. The brachycephalic Jew with broad face and 
heavy dark hair is said to be an Alpine. I think I know the Jewish 


242 


people pretty well, some of their good traits and some of their bad 
ones, but there is something that you can’t say about Jews—you 
cannot say that as a people they are stupid or that they show no in- 
terest in science or art. Incidentally, the Jew has had much to do 
with the development of modern music, and as to his interest in litera- 
ture and philosophy, let any one step into the reading room of the 
New York Public Library and he will find the place filled with 
Alpine Jews. 


The Nordic race is, of course, Mr. Stoddard’s favorite. He says 
that the Nordic is essentially “a high-standard man.” The Nordic is 
said to be restless, energetic, courageous, warlike, independent, demo- 
cratic, aristocratic, having a genius for government, for moral re- 
straint, for science. He is essentially an individualist and on the 
whole a “master man.” This is the race which carries the white 
man’s burden and which is, according to Mr. Stoddard, psycholog- 
ically equipped for dominance and for the achievement of the values 
of civilization. I suppose we are permitted to ask ourselves whether 
this flattering account is really true. The purest Nordic stock is in 
Sweden, but with all due respect to the Swedes I have not noticed 
that they are culturally superior to the rest of Europe or that Sweden 
has been especially distinguished for genius in government or for scien- 
tific progress. Good people as the Swedes are, I think Austrian Al- 
pines would compare with them fairly well in imagination, particu- 
larly with the Swedish peasants. I see very little difference between 
the Scandinavian peasant and any other. 


Now let us turn to England. Stoddard says that England is 80 
per cent Nordic and 20 per cent Mediterranean; and that the superior- 
ity of England consists in the fact that there are no Alpines in the 
British Isles, except in Ireland. The original Briton is said to be 
of part Mediterranean origin, while the blond Anglo-Saxon, the in- 
vader, is the true Nordic. In this respect I think it is interesting to 
note the physiological characteristics of the different classes in Eng- 
land. In what class do the blonds predominate? Unless my im- 
pression is entirely incorrect, I should say that the typical English 
aristocrat shows some Mediterranean characteristics, the oval face, 
olive skin and delicate features; in other words, the typical eighteenth 
century portrait is the picture of a man with a strain of Mediter- 
ranean in his ancestry. The typical Anglo-Saxon is “John Bull,” 
ruddy of face and with blond or reddish hair, thick and heavy and 
essentially practical. It would seem that the greater number of 
Nordics in England are in the middle or business classes. This is 
just an impression and is open to correction, but it is sufficient to 
raise the question. 


In America the descendants of the English are not predominantly 
blond. Lincoln, Douglas, Webster, are perhaps typical. Recently I 
had a conversation with a very observing German scholar who was 
here in America studying what he called the American type. He 
said to me, “I can’t understand you Anglo-Americans—you all look 
and act like Italians.” And if genius for stable government, respect 
for law and order, is a predominant Nordic trait, it becomes difficult 


243 
to explain the Ku Klux Klan, most of whose members are “ white, 
Protestant, 100 per cent and dry,” that is, the Klan has “ zone in” for 
the Nordic idea. 


McDougall’s discussion of the psychological differences of race 
differs somewhat from Stoddard’s. McDougall says that the southern 
peoples are characterized by lack of curiosity, by vivacity, sociability, 
expressiveness, and that they are very much the “extraverted” type 
You will remember that in our discussions of Jung we had occasion 
to note that he divides mankind into the extravert and introvert types. The 
extravert is the “tough-minded,’ as James would say; he is the per- 
son whose emotional interest is centered not so much upon himself 
as upon the objects in his environment. He is practical, not very 
meditative, not given to philosophy, but rather to science, a person 
of affairs. In other words, the extravert is to a very large extent the 
type of person Stoddard finds prevalent among the Nordics. Yet 
McDougall says that one of the marks of the superiority of the Nordic 
is the fact that he is an “introvert,” given to taciturnity, introspec- 
tion, subjectivity, and that in some sense his high degree of moral 
responsibility and of individualism are the result of his introversion. 
He finds that suicide is also a result of introversion and that there is 
a distribution of suicide and divorce—which is geographically iden- 
tical with the distribution of the Nordic peoples in the population of 
Europe. 


Here again I think we are dealing with very broad generaliza- 
tions. Curiosity, which McDougall says is a Nordic trait, is hardly 
consistent with introversion, since curiosity is essentially interest in 
the objects of one’s environment. McDougall makes much of the 
fact that the north is Protestant and the south Catholic, but I feel that 
he has taken too obvious a view in the matter. If there is such a 
distinction between northern and southern Europe, there may be a 
purely physiological racial cause for it. It is said that Mediterranean 
peoples reach their adolescence at an earlier age than do the peoples 
of the north. Now this earlier adolescence has certain sociological 
results, one of which is the tendency of Mediterranean peoples to 
marry at an early age and to bring up their children in the father’s 
house. The family tie is probably stronger among such people and it 
is the family image which characterizes Catholic Christianity. The 
Pope is “ father,” so is the priest. The tendency to defer to authority 
and tradition is probably less pronounced in the north for the reason 
that the northern youth reaches his adolescence later, and when he is 
mentally more mature. Marriage is postponed, and this physiological 
difference may account for the alleged individualism of northern peo- 
ples. However, before any such theory could be established we 
should possess a larger body of exact knowledge than we now have. 


Are there Superior and Inferior Races? 


Let us now turn to some of the alleged racial differences among 
men and see how great the psychological gap may be between races 
that physiologically differ very markedly. If we do not find any very 
great mental difference here, I think we are safe in saying that the 


244 


alleged psychological differences in the white race itself are not estab- 
lished facts. Let us compare the black race with the white. In this 
part of our discussion I wish to refer to a paper on this problem 
written by Mrs. Dorothy Hallowell and presented before a graduate semi- 
nar of Pennsylvania University in May 1923. Mrs. Hallowell first 
takes up the alleged differences in sensory reaction. Are the senses 
of the darker peoples, the black and the dark brown races, superior or 
inferior to those of the white race? After discussing the senses of 
vision, hearing, smell and touch, the color sense and reaction time, 
Mrs. Hallowell concludes that the alleged differences have been very 
much exaggerated, that as a matter of fact the popular idea that 
darker races are superior in this purely sensory respect to the whites 
is an error. People with brown eyes have been found to be on the 
whole more able to distinguish objects at a distance, but even here 
the blue-eyed sailor seems to be the equal of the brown-eyed Malay. 
It was found that training has much to do with excellence in this 
respect. 


As to other psychological traits, perhaps the intelligence tests are 
the most interesting. Chinese and American Indians have been 
studied in comparison with white children. In one instance the Chi- 
nese were shown to be only 80 per cent as intellectually efficient as the 
whites, but when rural white children were compared with white 
children in the city it was found that they showed still lower rating 
than the Chinese children. A number of studies have been made of 
negro children and their intelligence rating compared with that of 
whites. In the study reported by Strong and Morse one hundred and 
twenty-five negro children, ranging in age from six to twelve years, 
were examined in Columbia, South Carolina. The Goddard-Binet 
test was used and the results were compared with two hundred and 
twenty-five white children of similar ages from the city and from the 
mill communities. The test showed that 25.6 per cent of the colored 
as against 10.2 per cent of the whites were more than one year re- 
tarded; 74.4 per cent of the colored as compared with 84.4 per cent 
of the whites were satisfactory ; 8 per cent of the colored as compared 
with 5.3 per cent of the whites were more than one year advanced. 
This looks as if the colored race were intellectually less efficient than 
the white. But when the children of the white mill hands were com- 
pared with the white children of the city, they were found to rank 
much lower, grading very little above the negro children. A test was 
made of fifty-five colored students in the University of South 
Carolina, and the findings compared with seventy-five white college 
students. The result showed the average intelligence quotient of the 
whites to be 112 with a variation of six points, and that of the colored 
103 with a variation of 7.8 points. Here again the intelligence quotient 
of the negroes averages somewhat lower than the whites and the 
variation among them is greater. But the intelligence quotient of 
both whites and negroes in this instance was unusually high. 


The results of the army tests are fairly well known. The negroes 
on the whole make a much lower grade than the whites. In this mat- 
ter 1: is interesting to note, as I pointed out in a previous lecture, that 
northern negroes show a much higher average of intelligence than 


245 


southern negroes. This difference is probably due to environmental 
factors. Experiments made by Ferguson showed that the negroes 
tested were on the whole about three-fourths as efficient as the whites. 
However, Miss Hallowell suggests that social opportunity has much 
to do with these differences, and doubtless many other factors have 
an influence here. She concludes that the case is still unproved. There are 
as great variations of intelligence among the white race itself as there are 
differences between the intelligence of the white race as a whole and that of 
the colored race. Some of these differences run parallel to class distinc- 
tions. Ralston in Germany found that the children of the professional 
class on the scale there used averaged 85 points; those of the business class 
68; those of the artisan class 41, and those of unskilled laborers 39. Sim- 
ilar class differences have been discovered among white children in 
both America and England, so that McDougall argues that there is a 
real superiority in the so-called upper classes. Whether this is true 
or not, or if it is, why, satisfactory evidence is still wanting. When 
we discussed the army intelligence tests in an earlier lecture, I 
pointed out that much research has still to be done, and notwithstand- 
ing the fact that attempts have been made to eliminate the influence of 
environment, it may still be argued that the intellectual differences 
indicated here are not wholly due to heredity, 


If in comparing the black race with the white, we take in a larger 
group of factors, such as the relation of the intelligence to language 
and logic, to the arts, to self-control and capacity for endurance, and 
aesthetic sense, we find that the problem becomes very complicated 
and that there is a good deal of justification for Goldenweiser’s state- 
ment that from the standpoint of Anthropology no essential psychological 
differences of race are discernible. Miss Hallowell warns us that we 
must be careful not to define intelligence in terms of those responses 
which are characteristic of our own type of civilization. But the 
problem arises, of course, why the civilizations of different races are 
so different. Are these differences due entirely to historical acci- 
dents? Many anthropologists think that they are. The question is 
still open. It would seem that differences of mentality may exist be- 
tween the races, but racial distinctions are rather difficult to draw; there 
is much mixing of races everywhere, and certainly if such differences do 
exist they also exist in each race itself to a greater or less degree. 


Comparing one race with another, all we can say is that the white 
man is on the whole better adapted to his own particular civilization. 
That being the case, it is probably essential to the survival of that 
civilization that the white man predominate in the communities he 
has established. A great intermixture of other racial stock than white 
would probably result in marked changes in our social habits. But 
civilization is not the rigid thing that many imagine it to be. It is 
plastic, and very few thoughtful men would presume to say that our 
present white man’s civilization contains all the values that the human 
mind is capable of creating or represents all the interests that a high 
civilization should secure. From the time of Rousseau there has been 
much very serious criticism of our civilization on the part of thought- 
ful people. I doubt if we can make such a case for it that we would 
be justified in resisting any modification of it or in showing such an 


246 


unwillingness to learn from other people as is evidenced by our Ku 
Klux Klan. 


We should bear in mind the fact referred to above of the great 
differences in intelligence and in general mental efficiency that exist 
within every race. Those who have a high degree of intelligence are 
rare enough in all races, and perhaps the belief that one race is as a 
whole superior to another is cherished in part because it is a consolation 
to the mediocre members of every race. Within each race the variations 
in mental capacity are in some degree, perhaps to a very large extent, 
inherited. The native differences in superiority among men are not 
therefore coincident with their differences in race. Social psychology 
must take account of the fact that some men are by nature superior to 
others. This fact has been too long ignored in our democratic age. One 
way of ignoring it, or of evading its significance, is to encourage the 
fallacy that the principal mental differences among men in this respect 
are racial. 


If we cannot establish clearly any definite psychological differences 
between the white race and the black, certainly no such differences as 
Stoddard imagines to exist can be shown to differentiate the various 
branches of the white race itself. Assuming that originally there may 
have been certain inherited differences between the Nordic, the 
Alpine and the Mediterranean races, it is doubtful whether we should 
call these differences of superiority and inferiority. And whatever dif- 
ferences may have originally existed, it would seem that they are in 
the process of being obliterated. 


The Real Problem of Race. 


A moment ago I said that our civilization would doubtless show 
some modification as a result of race mixture where the differences in 
race were as great as they are between the white and the black or the 
white and the Asiatic. But if there is danger of losing whatever is 
good in civilization to-day, that danger arises as a result of the 
mental differences in the white race itself. We cannot make mediocrity 
and dullness the final arbiters of our values, as we have done in demo- 
cratic society, without having as a result a marked slump in the 
values of civilization. There are many evidences that such a general 
decline is in process among us at the present time. Nietzsche thought 
so and his contentions are borne out to some extent by a comparison 
of our modern journalism, our “ movies,” our popular magazines, our 
popular music, etc., with the intellectual and cultural standards which 
prevailed among the upper classes a century or more ago. It would 
seem that cultural values, if they are to survive, must be committed 
to the care of the mentally superior in whatever class or race such 
persons are found. When committed to society as a whole, they are 
of course given over to the hands of the average and mediocre man 
and they suffer as a consequence. 


It is also maintained, and I think with a good deal of evidence to 
support the contention, that within the white race the proportion of 


24/ 


persons of low inherited mental qualities is increasing in ratio much 
more rapidly than that of persons of a high type of mental capacity. 
It has been shown that the men who ranked “A” in the army intelli- 
gence tests are not reproducing their numbers, but that the 25 per 
cent who made the lowest grades are producing 50 per cent of the 
children. That percentage will be greater in the next generation 
than it is in this. There is therefore something to be said for the 
argument that selective breeding within the white race is disgenic, 
and this is the real problem of race. 


The physiological problem of race then is this: the problem of 
keeping alive in every race those strains which are most capable of 
contributing something of value to human life. This is a serious 
problem, because no plan has yet been devised for achieving such 
an end. It has been argued that to keep up the racial stock the unfit 
must be eliminated, and that our modern methods of sanitation, our 
concern for those who would otherwise be crushed in the competitive 
struggle for existence, our charities and child welfare activities, in 
general, are ill-advised because they keep alive and cause to multiply 
many inferior racial strains. 


Undoubtedly we have decreased infant mortality in recent years 
and this decrease has been most manifest in our city slums. An in- 
fant born in the slums, though born in squalor and poverty, has a 
much better chance to survive to-day than ever before in history. 
Hence the present absolute increase in population is said to be very 
largely an increase in the slum proletariat. There are writers who 
even go so far as to suggest that we discontinue our public charities 
and that the most merciful thing we can do is to permit the weak to 
be pushed to the wall. I think such an argument fails to take into 
account several important factors. In the first place, such a destruc- 
tion of the weak would be by no means confined to persons of this 
type. The infectious diseases from which they would die would 
spread throughout the community. Of course it would be said that 
even this is not an unqualified evil, since the diseases would sweep off 
those families which have the lowest resistance to infection, and low 
resistance is generally considered a mark of degeneracy. Neverthe- 
less, few people would seriously argue that we should increase disease 
and encourage epidemics for any such reason. 


Again it has been argued by Professor S. J. Holmes, the eminent 
zoologist of California University, that the elimination of the unfit 
is not the simple matter some easy-going writers imagine. In fact 
Holmes argues that a class is not exterminated when its standard of 
living is lowered. On the contrary, it is just the families on the bor- 
der line of starvation which have the largest number of children. 
Holmes does suggest one thing that has some interesting bearing on 
the matter of eugenics. He says that a large proportion of the chil- 
dren who die within the first year are really killed by mothers who are 
too stupid to learn how to bring them up, and he says that if these 
children should survive they would inherit the mother’s stupidity. 
He seems to think that where infant mortality is the result of bad 
economic conditions it should be prevented, but where it is the result of 


248 


the stupidity of the parents we might better let natural processes take 
their course. 


However this may be, it is my opinion that the racial stock could 
be improved if kept in mind the eugenic significance of much of 
our legislation and general social policy. What I mean is this: a 
large part of our reform legislation, such as prohibition, censorship 
and other measures, represents the dilemmas of morons and has the 
effect of keeping fools alive by protecting them from their own tempta- 
tions. We ought to resist any such tendency and to cease giving sup- 
port to the dilemmas of mediocrity in general. We should ask of any 


proposed reform whether it tends to protect lower minds from the re- “~ 


sults of their own shprtcomings, and further, whether in removing 
from men the necessity of choice and of moral responsibility, such 
reform may not give the stupid an advantage over the more intelligent 
in the struggle for existence. Furthermore, we should work for such 
modifications in the social order as will more nearly give to every 
child an opportunity to demonstrate what is in him and to enable him 
to find his own level. Much of the privilege that exists in the world 
to-day prevents just this. 


Social psychology lends very little support to race prejudice. The 
social psychologist can generally analyze race prejudice and see that it is 
largely a mere protest against a feeling of inferiority on the part of the 
lower elements in the dominant race. The real concern of social psychology 
is with these lower elements themselves. By revealing the true mo- 
tives of much social behavior, the psychologist can lead us to recog- 
nize lower motives for what they are, and with such recognition we 
may be able to act so as to encourage the more desirable types. One 
thing at least is possible, and that is a change of attitude toward the 
mass as a whole. The idealization of the mass is the idealization and 
worship of mediocrity, of undifferentiated man. It ignores distinction 
among men and hence destroys the very basis upon which the values 
of civilization rest. To the psychologist there are only two races of 
men, higher men and lower men, and these two types exist in all na- 
tions. There are higher white men and lower white men, higher 
black or yellow men and lower. All higher men have a common 
task. They should learn to work together. Their struggle is not 
against men of different color or shape of head, but against the mean 
little men of all races, their own included. The outcome of that strug- 
gle will determine the final outcome of civilization everywhere, 


LECTURE XVIII 
Ethics in the Light of Psychology. 





ETHICS IN THE LIGHT OF 
PSYCHOLOGY. 


N one of Shaw’s plays, “ Major Barbara,” there is a discussion be: 
I tween an innocent young man and his father. The father’s ethical 
philosophy has shocked the youth who is, at the time, being questioned 
as to his future prospects. The father is trying to discover what the 
young man knows. Conventionally brought up as he is, however, he seems 
to have no adequate practical knowledge of anything. Finally, the father, 
in despair, says: ‘‘ Well, what do you know?” The son replies, “1 
know the difference between right and wrong, sir.” The father’s reply 
is something like this: “ Why, you are wonderful to know this difficult 
and important matter, without any knowledge of life! I think you ought 
to be a journalist.” 


These are not the exact words of this conversation, but they give the 
idea. Shaw here has caricatured a very common psychological fact. 
There is probably no subject concerning which there are so many 
amateur authorities as you will find in matters of right and wrong. 
Everybody knows what is right—knows what his neighbors should do on 
all occasions. Men have a habit of reducing the rules of behavior to the 
most uncompromising and universal principles. They know the rules, even 
though few meditate upon the ends or results of behavior. It would ap- 
pear that everyone possesses some a priori knowledge so that, in advance 
of experience and without information concerning the situations in which 
the distinctions between right and wrong exist, men may with perfect as- 
surance presume to pass judgment. 


As a matter of fact, there is very little real thinking on the subject 
of ethics. Moral judgments are for the most part mere repetitions of 
made-in-advance formulae. The average man’s morality consists very 
largely of popular prejudices and taboos. When a matter becomes a 
moral issue people stop thinking about it, merely strike an attitude and 
take sides. There is very little study of the circumstances under which 
an act has to take place; very little criticism of the ends of conduct; very 
little appreciation of the values at stake. Moral ideals are used com- 
monly to rationalize and justify and give an appearance of eternal right- 
eousness to all sorts of issues which really have nothing to do with the 
ideas which men associate with them. The man who makes a serious 
study of moral ideas rather shocks us. We feel that he must be a man 
without any principles. Ethics is commonly a dark subject, filled with 
obscurantism, pretense and the spirit of coercion. 


The subject of ethics is so important, however, that it deserves our 
most serious and courageous thought. It controls human behavior and 
therefore is of primary interest for the psychologist. Yet, very little 
psychological study of ethics has been made. Such a study is difficult, 
for it is almost impossible even for the scientific student of human be- 
havior to refrain from moralizing. People want a gospel. They wish to 
be told on authority what to do and what to believe, especially if the au- 


[251] 


292 


thority happens to support them in what they already believe and wish to 
do. Most moral philosophers are, after all, special pleaders, each having 
his own view of life, each arguing for his own ethical system, each striv- 
ing to convert people to his ideas. ‘This will be quite evident if you call 
to mind the writings of some of the great moral philosophers. Immanuel 
Kant with his “‘ Categorical Imperative,” a theory which we will discuss 
later; Jeremy Bentham with his principle of the “ Greatest Happiness ”’; 
Spencer with his Hedonistic view; Nietzsche with his “ Transvaluation of 
Values,” are all excellent examples. Kant’s ethics is really a plea for 
equalitarian democracy, a theory expressed in abstract and transcendental 
terms. Bentham’s and Spencer’s ethics turns out to be a plea for in- 
dividualism; Nietzsche’s an argument for aristocracy. Each is striving 
to make people be good, in his own particular way. Perhaps a strictly 
impartial and scientific attitude toward this subject is impossible; for 
moral ideas, if they are genuine, lead to certain kinds of behavior, and 
we cannot help choosing what sort of behavior we prefer. 


Nevertheless, let us try to see what morality is made of. Instead 
of seeking to make people good, let us see what they mean by their 
different kinds of goods. I will ask two questions and strive to discuss 
these questions from the psychological standpoint. (1) Why do men say 
that some things are good and others evil or bad? (2) How can we 
know that we are right? ‘There are many other problems besides these 
two which deserve study. But these are doubtless the most important 
questions we can ask about ethics. 


Why do men say that some things are good and others bad or evil? 
In the first place, let us notice what things they judge in this way. The 
judgment of good and evil, so far as it has to do with morals, is not a 
judgment about objects, but a judgment concerning human actions. The 
moral judgment is a judgment about behavior. The judgment concerning 
things is an aesthetic judgment. Aesthetic judgments sometimes have to 
do with moral judgments; that is, there are some philosophers who be- 
lieve that moral judgments are based upon aesthetic judgments. I be- 
lieve that Nietzsche had some such view. Plato also expresses such a view 
when he says that “ The Good,” “ The True” and “The Beautiful ” are 
the same. 


Perhaps a psychological study of the aesthetic judgment will throw 
some light on what we mean by the moral judgment. Everyone knows 
what we mean by the word “ good ” in the aesthetic sense. We mean that 
which looks good, tastes good, smells good, feels good; that which gives 
us pleasant sensations rather than displeasing ones. A behavior psy- 
chologist who does not admit that psychology has anything to do with 
feeling nevertheless has his own equivalents for these two kinds of re- 
action to sensory stimuli. He would say that we have a “ positive” re- 
action tendency and a “ negative” reaction tendency. The positive kinds 
of responses are the ones which most psychologists call pleasurable and 
the negative kinds those which they call painful or unpleasant. 


The word “ aesthetics ” comes from the Greek word which has about 
the same meaning as sensuous or sensory. It stands for those distinctions 
of pleasantness and unpleasantness which are given us immediately by our 
senses. We all know the difference between the smell of a rose and that 
of carbon bisulphide. The first is a good smell; the second a bad 


253 


smell. This distinction is not based on any theory. Likewise, there is 
the distinction in sounds. ‘That, for instance, between a clear tone or a 
musical harmony and what we call a “bum” note. Likewise, we have 
an immediate sense of differences in taste, viz., between benedictine and 
asafoetida. And there are similar differences of good and bad in the ob- 
jects of sight. Everyone knows the difference of feeling between look- 
ing at a stained glass window in Trinity Church and looking at a row 
of garbage cans. This aesthetic difference between good and bad is 
something immediately given to us. It is a quality of our reaction to 
stimulus. | 


In and of itself, it is doubtful if we could say that an object is good 
or bad, but we are so constructed as a result of evolution that our re- 
actions to some things are necessarily pleasant and to others necessarily 
unpleasant. The aesthetic judgment belongs to our inherited reflexes. Of 
course, sometimes the reflexes may be conditioned. In other words, we 
may have certain acquired tastes, like the taste for olives or “ home brew.” 
Again, people’s tastes may differ. There is no absolute standard of the 
good or beautiful in the aesthetic sense. Some people like Limburger; 
others do not. The same is true of tobacco smoke. Some people enjoy 
the Independent Artists’ exhibit. The Turks are fond of stout women, 
considering them very beautiful; Americans seem to prefer the opposite 
type. Some people like Jazz, and there are many who consider tatooing 
a personal adornment. As I said, tastes differ. We may not agree as to 
what particular thing is good or bad, but we all agree in one thing: in 
the immediately known differences between those things which—whatever 
they happen to be—taste or feel good or bad. That is, we all know good 
and bad as something immediately given in experience. We all agree that 
something is good and something is bad. This distinction is an irreduc- 
ible fact, 


The Psychology of the Concepts Right and Wrong. 


Now, what is the relation between our saying that some things are 
good and others are bad and our saying that some actions are good and 
others are bad? Is the moral difference between good and bad some- 
thing given immediately in experience like the aesthetic difference? There 
have been philosophers who have held that this is so. Nietzsche believed 
that our moral judgments were in the end aesthetic judgments. To some 
extent, this is doubtless true. There are some actions which may be said 
to be beautiful heroic deeds, and acts of magnanimity have an aesthetic 
quality. We are thrilled when we see or read about them. When we 
witness an act of cruelty we have a feeling which seems to be as im- 
mediate as the unpleasant reaction we have when we see something ugly. 
Also, as Nietzche says, we admire ourselves. Each type of man wishes 
to believe that his kind is “the good” and that men who are not like 
him and his kind are inferior or bad or wicked men. And this aesthetic 
judgment about ourselves is carried over to the actions which are char- 
acteristic of each kind of man. People like their own ways. What we 
do must be good because we good men do it. Moreover, there is such 
a thing as making of living a sort of work of*art. People speak about 
the “ Beautiful Life.” The English gentry and the Chinese have, in dit- 
ferent ways, sought to give to behavior some such aesthetic quality. 


254 


Yet the aesthetic judgment and the moral judgment are not always 
the same. Moral values are not given to us as immediately as aesthetic 
values. There is much more conditioning of reflexes, much more that is 
acquired, that is a result of training in the moral judgment. Often the 
good and the beautiful do not seem to go together at all. Alcibiades is 
beautiful. Alcibiades is not good. Socrates is ugly, but Socrates is good. 
The Venus de Medici is good from the aesthetic standpoint, but she does 
not necessarily inspire in us a moral judgment of the good. In the ex- 
perience of a Casanova or a Don Juan there is doubtless much that is 
aesthetically good, but we can hardly say that such characters are morally 
good. Shakespeare’s Sonnets are among the most beautiful poems ever 
written. Yet I have little doubt that if Shakespeare were alive in Amer- 
ica to-day and published these Sonnets, his book would be suppressed by 
the Society for the Prevention of Vice. The medieval monks found much 
enjoyment in reading the verse of Ovid. They did this, however, be- 
cause they were cultivated men who loved beauty. It is not generally 
considered that their interest in Ovid was primarily an ethical interest. 


In fact, if we look to history we see that so divergent are the aesthetic 
and moral judgments that their goods have often been considered op- 
posites. This sense of the irreconcilibility of the two kinds of good is a 
basic principle in the Puritan philosophy of life, and is seen in the fact 
that in those communities where there is the greatest concern for morality, 
there is frequently much ugliness. And the converse of this is often true. 
The great ages, the ages characterized by cosmopolitan culture and artis- 
tic creation, ‘have not been the most moral periods; but rather the reverse. 
An illustration of this is the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century. 
Luther saw in the Rome of the Renaissance the sink of every abomina- 
tion. Erasmus, whose interest was more intellectual and aesthetic, saw 
in Renaissance Italy a glorious period of human advance. Both were 
doubtless correct. 


The same divergence between the ends of the esthetic and moral 
judgments is illustrated in two statues in the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art in New York City. The statues are, curiously enough, by the same 
sculptor, Donatello. The first is the youthful David. Here we have a 
beautiful body, very much alive and full of action, a truly pagan con- 
ception, in which there is complete indifference to the ends of morality. 
The other statute is that of John the Baptist. Here is the embodiment 
of Christian piety and ethics. It is also the embodiment of ugliness. The 
face is drawn with pain; the body is emaciated and half starved; mis- 
shapen and decrepit; even the clothes are ragged and suggest dirtiness. 
The whole figure symbolizes the squalor and wretchedness of life in this 
wicked world. The David statute is an embodiment of the esthetic good, 
the figure of John the Baptist, of a moral good. Of course, the moral 
good typified here is only one judgment concerning the good. 


We are not now interested in what is morally good, but in the judg- 
ment that some acts are good and others bad. And we find that the moral 
judgment and the aesthetic judgment are not necessarily the same. The 
distinction I wish to make between them is primarily this: the aesthetic 
judgment is our judgment about things and the way they stimulate us; 
the moral judgment is a judgment about deeds. The latter is not merely 


255 


a carrying-over into our estimate of human behavior of the immediately 
known sensory difference which characterize the aesthetic judgment, it 
is a judgment of a different kind. 


Why, then, do people say that some actions are good and others bad? 
Various answers have been given. The first is the theory that custom 
has inspired men to call some things good and others bad. That which 
is customary is good; that which is “ not done” is wicked or bad. Hence 
men knowing the difference between that which is customary and that 
which is unusual or contrary to established habits, have been led to judge 
their actions by this difference. The theory has some philosophical sup- 
port. The word morals comes from the Latin word mores which W. G. 
Sumner translates “ folkways.” The Greek word ethics comes from the 
word “ ethos” which means manners or habits. The word ethos is prob- 
ably derived from the verb “etho,” to get used to. There is something to 
be said for the idea that manners and morals are identical. Habit has much 
co do with both. Moral training consists in the formation of those habits 
which are approved by the community. 


But this theory does not explain how the habits or customs arose in 
the first place. It explains rather what it is that men hold to be good. 
Custom is a criterion of behavior but custom itself must have had an 
origin somewhere in the psychic nature of Man. It must be the out- 
growth to some extent of the moral judgment. Moreover, the theory 
does not allow sufficiently for the place in history of great moral leaders. 
We hold that men like Socrates and Jesus—if he was really a historical 
person—are essentially moral. Yet that which interests us in the moral 
teaching of such men is the fact that they differed in certain respects 
from the customs of the people among whom they lived. Socrates was 
put to death on the charge that he corrupted the youth of Athens. This 
was because he strove to analyze moral custom and make the guides of 
behavior more rational. Jesus says, “Ye have heard that it hath been 
said ‘an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’” But he tells us to 
behave otherwise. So in his teaching the institution of the Sabbath is 
humanized. The Sabbath exists for men, not men for the Sabbath. Jesus 
shocks the moralists of the day by eating with saloon-keepers and other 
sinners, and by saying that liquor dealers and harlots will enter the king- 
dom of heaven in preference to the Puritans. Jesus is a moral non-con- 
formist, and were he alive in the world now he probably would shock 
the good people of our age just as tradition has it that he shocked those 
of his own time whose righteousness consisted chiefly in conformity to 
custom and tradition. 


As Dewey says, it is one of the tasks of true morality to criticize 
and modify at times the customs of one’s age. If custom is the basis of 
the moral judgment it is difficult to see how there could be any moral 
progress in history. I admit that there has not been much. We talk a 
great deal about moral progress. But we still practice and glorify war. 
However, we are perhaps less barbarous in this respect than were the 
ancients. An ancient Assyrian inscription tells us how the king offers 
to his god a large pile of ears cut off the heads of his captives. It was, 
moreover, the custom in ancient times to put the civilian population of a 
besieged city to the sword or to sell the captives into slavery. It is not 


256 


customary for us to do this sort of thing. Yet in the late war it cannot 
be denied that there were many instances where war was made on non- 
combatants. The Bible says that Samuel hewed Agag to pieces before 
the Lord. We have learned more human ways of disposing of our 
enemies. So there has been some moral progress. Altogether, custom 
alone does not account for the fact that men say some things are good 
and others are bad. It rather operates to preserve, often in obsolete for- 
mulas, the common man’s idea of what is good or bad. 


Another theory as to the origin of the moral judgment is sometimes 
advanced by radical thinkers who say that this judgment has its origin in 
the interests of the ruling class. The argument is based upon a certain 
philosophy of history. At any time the social order is under the domi- 
nance of a group or class of people who “live by exploiting the masses.” 
This master class identifies its own supremacy with the social order it- 
self. The particular social order of any historic epoch is the creation of 
some such class. In order to secure its dictatorship, the master class 
creates certain sanctities with which ‘to bolster up its privileges and give 
them the appearance of universal principle. Thus, there is created, in the 
interest of the rulers, an idealogy. ‘This idealogy is accepted by the 
masses and constitutes their moral ideas. It is merely a mechanism of 
control. Some actions are in accord with the idealized interests of the 
master class and some are not. Thus, men come to entertain the notion 
that there are two kinds of actions. They call those which are approved 
by the masters, good; and those which meet with their disapproval, bad. 
Hence, the moral judgment is said to rest upon the class struggle and to 
be explained by the “ materialistic interpretation of history.” 


The difficulty with this argument is that it is so easy for its advo- 
cates to invent history. Many historical facts are ignored; even their 
over-emphasis upon the class struggle would hardly justify them in this 
conclusion. Nietzsche likewise emphasized the role of the class struggle 
in the evolution of morals but drew from it a very different conclusion. 
Instead of finding in it the basis of the moral judgment, as such, Nietzsche 
found in it rather the basis of the criterion as to what 1s good. The basis 
of the moral judgment he found to be the self-idealization of different 
kinds of men. He argued that from this self-idealization there have come 
at least two moralities: ‘Master morality” and “slave morality.” 
Originally Nietzsche says, the difference between good and bad did not 
apply to actions, as such, but to the difference of class. The master 
class, being successful, glorified itself. Its members called themselves 
“the good,” the best people, “cot aristot,’ the gentlemen, the nobles. 
From this idealization of themselves, there was derived a similar ideal- 
ization of the manners and conduct characteristic of the master class. 
Thus we speak of “ gentle manners,” “ noble deeds,” etc. 


Similarly, this class despised the cruder slave population which it 
ruled and those words which characterize “the bad” were originally at- 
tributed to the slave population itself rather than to their behavior. Thus, 
we have such words as “ knave,” “ villain’’—meaning the inhabitant of 
the little village on the estate—“ vulgus,” meaning common people; 
“malus,” the Latin word for bad, coming from a word which means 
“ dark-skinned.” From the aristocrats’ contempt for the lower classes 


anf 


there is derived this contempt for the behavior of these classes. So we 
have such words as “schlecht,” “vulgar,” ‘“knavish,”’ “ villainous,” 
“common,” all of which really mean slavish. Hence, Nietzsche holds that 
the moral judgment as to conduct is an abstraction derived from a judg- 
ment concerning men. 


But as I said, such a derivation of the moral judgment means that 
there must be more than one morality. The slave class which admires it- 
self, protects itself against its feeling of inferiority. Slaves also say, 
“We are the good,” and by the word good they mean, the meek, the 
obedient, the faithful, the humble, the long suffering. And from this 
self-idealization there come such virtues as ‘“ meekness,”’ “ patience,” 
“piety,” etc. As the masters despise the slaves, so the slaves fear and 
resent the masters. They wish them to be overthrown. They rationalize 
this wish by the conviction that the masters are evil. The evil man is 
simply the slaves’ idea of the master class, and the behavior of the master 
class seeking its own interests is evil. Hence evils according to this 
morality are “exploitation,” “self-aggrandizement,” “ haughtiness,” “ ar- 
rogance,” “‘ worldliness.” |Ndetzsche maintains that the Christian ethic is 
slave morality and has its origin in slave psychology. Whether he is 
correct in this or not is irrelevant for our discussion. My point is that 
the attempt to derive the moral judgment from the historic class struggle 
would lead us back to the derivation of the ethical judgment from the 
aesthetic. We have already dealt with this point. 


Another theory as to the origin of the moral judgment is the doc- 
trine of the moral will. This is a Kantian position and is held by a num- 
ber of leaders of Ethical Societies. The idea is that the difference be- 
tween the good and the bad is something which exists independently of 
ourselves. It is a distinction eternal in the cosmos itself, written in the 
skies like the law which keeps the stars from falling. Duty is eternal, be- 
cause we live ina moral universe. Man is endowed with a moral nature. 
He has certain “a priori intuitions’ of duty and truth and right. Man 
is not the creator of the moral order of his life, according to this theory; 
he merely recognizes such an order and when his moral will is functioning 
properly, finds his greatest happiness in obeying the moral law. 


This theory is, to my mind, unpsychological. Psychology knows 
nothing of such a “moral will” or “a priori intuition” of duty. Duty 
does not exist as duty in general, but there is always some specific duty, 
inherent in a definite set of dilemmas, and these dilemmas are wholly 
within human experience. The moral universe is a pure piece of meta- 
physical speculation. So far as we can see, man himself has created the 
moral order of his life and that order is definitely related to our bio- 
logical needs and social relationships. If man had a moral will which 
gave him immediate knowledge of duty, it would be difficult to account 
for the honest differences in people concerning what is right. 


This theory is one of the sources of the popular notion that there is 
a one right way, and that all who are not with us are against us and are 
of the Devil. This is an idea common in-the rationalizations of crowds. 
It enables them to call their goods “the good,” and to christen their rights 
“righteousness.” It is a little presumptuous on our part, and is an evi- 
dence of human conceit, that we should imagine that our simian or monkey 
ways, right as they maybe for ourselves, are the things which characterize 


258 


the universe as a whole. The most psychological view of the origin of 
the moral judgment is that which takes into account the results in ex- 
perience of human behavior. Our actions do make a difference because 
they lead us to a better or worse state of affairs and the moral judgment 
grows out of this fact. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing 
things. There is a right thing and a wrong thing to do. It is not neces- 
sary for us to resort to metaphysical speculation to find this out, because 
our actions have effects in experience which we cannot escape. We must 
adjust ourselves to our natural and social environment. Such adjustment, 
as a rule, is imperfect. But very gradually the race learns how to make 
it more and more adequate. Much of our ethic is the result of the neces- 
sity of mutual adjustment among men. 


From the very beginning men have lived in groups. They are per- 
manently in one another’s environment. Each one is a part of the en- 
vironment of all the rest. Now, it is impossible to adjust ourselves to 
an environment in which there is no regularity or order. Consequently, 
those groups which could reduce their behavior to some kind of order 
had the best chance to survive in the struggle for existence. At the 
points in our behavior, therefore, where we must take the behavior of 
other people into account—that is, where our own behavior becomes an 
environmental factor for someone else—soctal necessity tends to reduce 
behavior to habit. It does not make much difference what the habits are, 
so long as the standardization of men’s behavior gives them a social 
environment which they can count on. If we could not predict the be- 
havior of our fellows it would be impossible for us to live together. 
Hence, there is a persistent tendency through the ages on the part of 
men in groups to reduce the behavior of one another to such forms as 
will be more or less predictable. So men say that some things are good 
and other things are bad or evil, because of the necessity of mutual ad- 
justment and because the effects of maladjustment are immediately known 
facts of experience. This is the psychologically correct account of the 
origin of a moral judgment. 


How Can We Know that We Are Right? 


We have tried to account for the existence of moral judgment. Now 
let us consider the question—it is really a difficult question—How can we 
know that we are right? Granting that we make the general distinction 
between acts that are good and acts that are not good, how can we know 
when a particular act is good? This is a difficult problem always and 
leads to all sorts of moral dilemmas. We most often act before we are 
quite sure what the results will be. Moreover, there are many possible 
ends among which we must make a choice. Most men wish to do what 
is right, to arrive at that which is the correct solution of the problems 
confronting them in view of the results in their own experiences. They 
also wish to do that which makes for social adjustment, that which will 
zive them the approval of their fellows, and that which will bring them 
self-approval. Now these ends are often incompatible. And hence, the 
practical problem of morals. 


As James says, considered a priori, the good is that which satisfies u 
demand ; and if there were only one demand in the world, whatever that 
demand was, from the a priori point of view it ought to be satisfied. Why 


299 


not? The only reason is that there is some other demand, the satisfac- 
tion, or “good,” of which is incompatible with the first. There must, 
therefore, be a frightful “ killing off” of goods. We are shut up to the 
choice of the larger good or the lesser evil. That good which, in being 
realized, kills off the fewest other goods, and leaves the fewest other de- 
mands unsatisfied, must be the “highest good” for us. But it is always 
a good for us. If we were organized differently something else might be 
the good. There is no absolute good—Nothing which is merely good in 
and for itself; that is, which is not good for anybody in particular. What 
is good must feel good for somebody somewhere. Hence the need of a 
criterion. 

A popular criterion is consideration for others. It is said quite 
truthfully that no man can live unto himself alone. Altruism has long 
been held to be of prime moral worth. He who thinks only of his own 
interest, is a “ bad man.’’ He who lives so that he brings happiness to 
his relatives, neighbors, and so far as possible to mankind as a whole, is 
a “good man.” This is true. But we may properly raise the question 
whether benevolence alone may be taken as the moral criterion. There 
is always the question, How far one is justified in sacrificing himself 
for the good of others, how far his self-denial may go without merely in- 
creasing his selfish egoism. From this point of view the ends of such 
self-sacrifice must also be considered. Should a Plato, for instance, risk 
his life in order to give a blood transfusion to a sick Alcibiades? If all 
who have property sold their goods and gave to the poor, would the poor 
in the end be better off? Or would universal poverty result? Since some 
degree of leisure and comfort seem to be necessary for the survival of 
culture, should culture be surrendered to benevolence? And as to benevo- 
lence itself, to what extent does it administer to the survival of the unfit, 
and hench to the ETL ASSO of their kind, thus adding to the misery of 
the world? 


Again, should genius strangle his inspiration becattse his truth 
might be painful and even harmful to some people? And there is a 
still further consideration. Are there not various ways of doing good to 
others, some wise and some foolish and even socially harmful? Tam- 
many politicians have warm hearts, even in politics they look out for the 
interests of “the boys.’ Yet the social results of such benevolence may 
be baleful. Hard-hearted and small-souled moral reformers commonly 
believe that their bigoted and restrictive policies are for “ the good” of 
the people out of whose lives they would cast every joy. 


Can we thus take the “ good of others” as our criterion? I am 
afraid not. Few men are wise enough to know what is good even for 
themselves, let alone others. Great as is the virtue of benevolence, it 
must always be aided by intelligence and good breeding, and even then it 
remains but one of the virtues. It cannot in itself be made the sole cri- 
terior. of the good. The insistence upon the practice of “ Brotherly 
Love” by our neighbors is often an outgrowth of our egoistic desire to 
get something for nothing. 


Kant thought that he found a criterion in the “ Categorical Impera- 
“tive.” “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy 
will a universal law.” This sounds very simple, but it is anything but 


260 


simple. Who knows what should be a universal law, or how a universal 
principle should be applied in a special case? What is right for me in 
some circumstances may be wrong in others. And what is right for you 
may be the wrong thing for me to do. We should talk not about “ right 
and wrong” in the abstract, but about the right and wrong thing to do. 
Why should I presume to make myself the moral legislator for the uni- 
verse? Preoccupation with the universal diverts attention from the rele- 
vant and specific. In other words, Kant’s ethic is an ethic which 
deliberately ignores the results of behavior. 


Kant would eliminate all that is empirical; that is, all that has to do 
with experience. He says, “A good will is good not because of what it 
performs, not by its aptness for its attainment of some proposed end, 
but simply by virtue of the volition. That is, it is good in itself. Even 
if it should happen that owing to special disfavor of fortune or the nig- 
gardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack 
power to accomplish its purpose—Then, like a jewel, it would still shine 
by its own light. Its usefulness or fruitfulness can neither add to nor 
take away anything from its value.’ In other words, Kant says that if 
I act from a sense of duty it does not make any difference what I do. 
Differences are empirical facts. Results have nothing to do with the 
case. I think this is a pernicious principle because it leads men to think 
that they can be good without considering the effects of their actions. 


Similar to this principle of Kant’s, though more romantic, is the 
idea that conscience is a true moral guide ; that all one has to do is to obey 
his conscience and he will be good. There are times when man is justi- 
fied in acting from motives of conscience alone. But that leads us to the 
question, What do we mean by conscience? Nietzsche showed that the 
“good conscience” and the “bad conscience” are largely social pro- 
ducts, dependent upon conformity to tradition. Dewey shows that this 
theory of conscience would make ethics purely subjective. Now all sorts 
of subjective, even unconscious motives, may go to make up our con- 
sciences. It is said that “ hell is paved with good intentions.” 


In conscience there is a great deal of rationalization. Our uncon- 
scious may always invent plausibilities which will make the thing we want 
to do seem right, whether it is or not. Crowds and neurotics are al- 
ways rationalizing their behavior in this way. If a mob wishes to torture 
a negro with a good conscience, it need only rationalize its sadism, so that 
it takes on an appearance of “ Devotion to morality.” An illustration of 
such rationalization of the conscience appears in this morning’s paper. 
A “boot-legger ” has become so wealthy and prosperous that along with 
his prosperity has come the desire for family respectability. His daughter 
is ashamed because her companions make slighting remarks about the 
source of the family fortune. The father’s heart is touched; his “ con- 
science” troubles him; so he consults the United States District Attor- 
ney to learn if charges pending against him will prevent his departure for 
Europe. He says, “ Rosie and I are going home. With the roll I got, 
she can be a real princess there, and hold up her head with the best of 
them.” 


I am convinced that if you would consult the inhabitants of Sing- 
Sing you would find that nearly everyone of them had a good con- 


261 


science. We simply cannot accept the fact of our moral inferiority, so 
we always invent what in a previous lecture I called “ fictions about our- 
selves.” It is not that “conscience makes cowards of us all,” but rather 
that cowardice makes us conscientious. Conscience may be more clever 
we true. It is very often a special pleader, less often an impartial 
judge. 


It is often said that the best criterion of the good is that which is 
given by divine revelation. In other words, there is a common belief that 
morality is based upon religion. Without doubt, religious institutions, be- 
ing largely also political institutions, have lent sanctity to moral custom and 
have given the support of religious authority to various folkways. But 
psychologically considered, in spite of most people’s belief to the con- 
trary, I cannot see that religion and morals have very much in common. 
Religion, as I defined it in a previous lecture, is our symbolic apprecia- 
tion of the mystery of existence in the interest of our ego. Religion 1s 
an escape mechanism, a poetic approach to the world to which it gives a 
character that is conducive to the achievement of human ends. The func- 
tion of religion is to make us feel at home in the universe and keep up 
our self-appreciation. In other words, religion is redemption, as I have 
said. Ethics grows out of the need for mutual adjustment in the very 
world of reality, the significance of which religion would transform. 


To be sure, religions all have their moral codes, the commandments. 
But these commandments are really of human origin. Note the Deca- 
logue. Much of the Mosaic legislation of which it is a part is said to be 
derived from the code of Hammurabi, who lived a thousand years before 
Moses. Moreover, each of the ten commandments is such an obvious 
rule of action that it does not require a “ divine revelation” for humanity 
to know these simple moral laws. As a moral guide there are many 
things in the Old Testament which would be poor rules of practice to-day. 
Polygamy, slavery, and war are all there with moral approval. In the 
book of Exodus, the Israelites are told to borrow jewelry from their 
Egyptian neighbors and then run off to the wilderness without return- 
ing it. In another place, they are told that if their oxen die of a disease, 
they must not eat the meat but should sell it to foreigners. David, “the 
man after God’s own heart,” would hardly be considered morally re- 
spectable in Puritanical America. 


The New Testament presents something of a moral problem to the 
psychologist. Its highest commandment is the “Golden Rule.” Yet here 
again, no revelation seems to be necessary to teach a man that he must 
treat his neighbors in the way he would have them treat him. You may 
generally count on the neighbors teaching him that. In the New Testa- 
ment there are really three moral systems and they are hardly compatible. 
There is first, an aristocratic ethic. The Christian has held before him 
the ideal of independence, of being above the law. He is to be mag- 
nanimous, yet not to cast his pearls before swine. On the whole, he is 
taught to be tolerant, “perfect” in the way that the Heavenly Father is 
perfect; not to judge men, but to be like the Father, who sends his sun- 
shine and rain on the evil and the good, the just and unjust, alike. This 
ethical idea was also held, with some modification, by many aristocratic 
moral philosophers before Christianity. 


262 


There is, second, an ascetic morality in the New Testament. Here 
spirit and flesh are enemies. Voluntary abstinence is ordained. One 
must die unto this world, crucify the flesh, present his body a living 
sacrifice, in order that he may attain “purity.” I have not the space in 
this lecture to give a psychological discussion of the idea of purity in 
ascetic morality, but it is enough to say that it has certain affinities with 
the pathological withdrawal of interest from the world of objects, and 
the ceremomialism characteristic of it has striking likenesses with the 
ceremonialisms which one suffering with compulsion neurosis uses to 
purge himself of an inner feeling of guilt. 


The third moral system in the Christian ethic is, psychologically 
speaking, plebeian. It is revolutionary, intolerant, coercive and revenge- 
ful of a social order in which the masses are made to play an inferior 
role and is very contemptuous toward the great of this earth. Each 
of these moral systems stands for a definite psychological approach to 
life, and I doubt if anyone could successfully carry out the precepts of 
all of them. 


In general, it may be said of religious ethic that it is ritualistic and 
ceremonial. It is based upon commandments, not upon the considera- 
tion of results. Conduct here is “ required” of man by something out- 
side the situation in which he has to behave. He has to keep the com- 
mandments and trust the Lord for what happens. Here, as in the case 
of the Categorical Imperative, a criterion is set up which ignores the 
results of behavior. Man is led to feel that he is doing the right thing 
when he is performing the ceremonially correct act, an act which may be 
wholly irrelevant to the ends of successful adaptation to environment. 


The criterion must be relevant to the situation at hand. The good 
must be something which has to do with the case. There must be a 
sense of the connection between an act and its end. In other words, we 
cannot escape the fact that good behavior, as Dewey says, is intelligent 
action. Intelligence itself is our best guide to conduct. Dewey defines 
intelligence as the purposive intervention in the course of events to- 
gether with foresight of ends. Intelligent behavior necessitates choice. It 
necessitates the consideration of all the probable and relevant aspects of 
the situation in which action must occur. Morality has as much to do 
with the environment as with the will. As Dewey says, it is like breath- 
ing, which is as much a function of the air as of the lungs. Any ethical 
philosophy which considers the “ moral will” alone, is as foolish as would 
be a hygiene which considered the lungs as if they had nothing to do with 
the atmosphere. 


We must get rid of the notion that there is about ethics something 
sacerdotal or metaphysical. Morality must not become a sequestered in- 
terest. It is simply the difference between adequate and inadequate re- 
action to situations. There is nothing more sacred about it than there is 
about laying bricks or brushing one’s teeth. In fact, every possible ac- 
tion has moral significance when we consider the act in the light of its 
results upon ourselves and others. The most moral actions are those 
in which the whole situation is taken into account and in which there is 
some appreciation of the values of experience. 


263 


There are certain values of civilization which must be kept alive. And 
when all is said and done, the moral life is still something of an ad- 
venture, involving risks and demanding thought. We cannot make it 
dependent upon outside and irrelevant considerations. The moral order 
of the world is man’s achievement, probably his noblest and highest. Man 
is at his best when he comes to understand himself as a creator of value 
and an author of the moral criteria by which his life must be guided to 
ultimate success or failure, a success or failure which may involve both 
himself and his world. , 


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LECTURE XIX 
Behaviorism—T he Latest and Most Debated Development. 





BEHAVIORISM—THE LATEST AND MOST 
DEBATED DEVELOPMENT 


66 EHAVIORISM ” is a new word. It stands for a point of view 

which was bound, sooner or later, to influence psychology. The 
behaviorist school differs from other schools of psychology in this: that 
it attempts to study what we call mental life by the same purely objective 
methods that are used in such natural sciences as chemistry and biology. 
To the behaviorists, psychologists of other schools are not really scientific 
because they regard mental facts as phenomena which belong to an order 
of being wholly different from that which we find in the objective world. 
Now it is a presupposition of science that “nature makes no jumps.” 
The scientist is interested in pointing out the causal connections among 
the facts of nature. He believes that there is a certain uniformity in the 
universe, so that the same scientific logic which applies to one group of 
facts will apply to others; in other words, science maintains that the uni- 
verse in all its phases is reducible to certain scientific formulas and laws. 


We have seen in the previous lectures that there is a connection be- 
tween what we call mental life and what we call physical life. We have 
seen that higher types of mental life accompany more advanced stages of 
organic evolution. Are the so-called facts of mind so different from the 
rest of nature that they cannot be studied or explained in the same way 
as other facts? Much traditional psychology says that they are. The as- 
sumption that they cannot be so explained irritates many men trained in 
natural science. These scholars would like to see the same degree of 
accuracy, the same objectivity here as elsewhere. They look forward to 
the achievement of a coordinated series of sciences. They would explain 
the facts of biology and psychology in the terms of the sciences of chem- 
istry and physics. 


There are, of course, many difficulties in the assumption that mind 
and body belong to two separate ‘“‘ realms of being” and are essentially 
different. Consequently, behaviorists have the feeling that these diffi- 
culties may be avoided, and the problems of mental life very much simpli- 
fied, if they can proceed on the assumption that mind is simply behavior 
and that its phenomena may be explained as the response of the organism 
to some physiological stimulus. 


Naturally, such an assumption has created controversy. There has 
probably been much more controversy than was necessary. It would 
have been easier to judge behaviorism on its merits, if psychologists did 
not still retain the habit of the older philosophers of dividing themselves 
into “schools,” and if people could only keep out of the discussion of it 
things which have nothing to do with the case—metaphysical, religious 
or sociological interests. Behaviorism, therefore, has come to be some- 
thing which people feel they must be “for” or “against.” Many per- 
sons regard it as a sort of creed: one may become converted to it or 
withhold belief. To some it seems like a sort of gospel. Many: social 
radicals have accepted it uncritically, often without really knowing what 
it means, merely because behaviorism seems to them to stand for material- 
ism, and materialism means “the materialist interpretation of history ” 


[267] 


268 


and that means Marxian socialism. I am quite sure that the leading be- 
haviorists are far from this point of view. To yet other people behavior- 
ism appears to be a malicious attempt to destroy the spiritual meaning of 
life. , 


Now all this is certainly unscientific. We have reached a time in 
our intellectual development when we ought to be able to judge a move- 
ment like behaviorism on its merits, and to view it as a method of study 
to be verified by appeal to fact, and not take it up as if it were some 
special cult. In just the degree that people are cultists they have not 
attained the scientific spirit. As psychology has become more popularized 
this tendency to make a cult of its various schools has been greatly in- 
creased. There are people who are ever prone to make a fad of the 
latest idea, and there are many others who resist violently any attempt to 
compel them to take an objective view of the facts of nature. We must 
remember that men once resorted to introspection and revelation in order 
to explain the shape and size of the earth, the movement of the stars, the 
origin of species, and the laws of chemical change. 


In and of itself there is nothing very startling in the attempt of the 
behaviorist to study human psychology in a strictly objective manner. 
Behaviorism is primarily a method of study and it is to be valued only 
after we have properly appreciated its results. I do not, however, mean 
to minimize its importance. As we shall see, it gives us a fresh and 
stimulating point of view and if it is able to add anything in the way otf 
accuracy to our knowledge of psychology, we ought to be glad. Certainly 
it has greatly increased the discussion of psychological problems among 
scholars and this in itself is a good thing. Behaviorism may be regarded 
along with psycho-analysis as one of the two important developments in 
psychology since the days of James. G. Stanley Hall seems to regard it 
as a protest against the older introspectionists’ method, a protest which is, 
to some extent, justified. He says: 


“Introspection, that catches innumerable flitting phenomena, most 
of which are superficial or marginal and, without immediate introversion, 
would generally never be known at all because they are so nearly uncon- 
scious, has made very important generalizations from such data. It, 
however, makes little effort to explain their origin. Its material is 
gathered from a small and narrowly restricted class of individuals— 
especially trained graduate students and their teachers. Its quest is for 
psychic elements when in fact there are no such things but only psychic 
germs. It claims to be the only Simon-pure psychology but it is so only 
in the sense that it treats conscious phenomena as if they were finalities 
instead of being, all of them, only symbols, and makes no attempt to ex- 
plain the highly complex categories, determining tendencies, Finstel- 
lungen, etc., with which it works. It has, however, accumulated valuable 
data for a more ultimate psychoanalysis which, when it comes, may make 
a use of its conclusions as different from the purposes they were intended 
to serve as the critical, scientific, or clinical psychologist does of the 
psychic researchers’ studies of mediums. It has one answer to all critics, 
namely, that they do not understand. Much of it might be called the 
psychology of mental images and it has shed much light. But it gives 
too scant recognition te other lines of endeavor and has nearly all the 


269 


earmarks of a sect apart. It is also responsible for the extreme reaction 
of behaviorism, which is a healthy movement of compensation.” 


Personally I do not see why there should be an intense quarrel as to 
what is the one right method. There are some psychological problems 
which can best be solved by the behaviorist. There are others for the 
solution of which we still have no other methods than the introspectionist, 
and undoubtedly there are many problems to which psychopathology gives 
us the best answer. If there are inconsistencies in psychology to-day, 
perhaps wiser and less dogmatic men than ourselves in the future may 
find ways to harmonize them. Again, perhaps there will always be in- 
consistencies. It is something of an article of faith, even among scientists, 
to hold that the world in which we live can be reduced to a logically con- 
sistent set of principles. This is a good faith, but scientists should be on 
their guard against the assertion that they have achieved their goal as yet. 
And this applies to behaviorism. 


Perhaps some day the behaviorist method may give us an answer to 
all the problems of psychology. At the present time it has certainly not 
done so, for it leaves out many things which are of great psychological 
interest. I am not here to pass judgment on behaviorism or on the 
splendid work which has been done by its leading exponent, Dr. John B. 
Watson. It is rather our purpose to get clearly in mind just what the 
behaviorist standpoint is. As I said, behaviorism is an attempt to study 
psychology with the same exactness of control and carefulness of obser- 
vation, and the same objectivity (and with similar laboratory methods) 
that have given us our present knowledge of physics and physiology. To 
this end it abandons entirely the introspective method. It is very critical 
of introspectionism. In the first lecture we saw that this method has 
serious limitations. Students in psychological laboratories may work for 
years striving to discover minute differences of sensation, analysing their 
own thoughts and emotions and yet never attain any such body of knowl- 
edge as would be. agreed upon by other students studying the same data 
in their own experience. 


The criticism has been made with some justice that purely subjective 
material can never be made into a scientific body of knowledge. Always 
our subjective states, while they may be immediately known to us, are 
susceptible to the interpretations which we incline to give to them. There 
are people who have subjective certainty of the immortality of the soul, 
or other religious doctrines. Recently a clergyman won a debate in 
Carnegie Hall, New York, with such subjective arguments. The subject 
of discussion was a purely historical problem having to do with the his- 
torical origins of Christianity—in other words, with historical events 
which happened nearly 2,000 years ago. The argument brought forth in 
support of the historicity of the Christian tradition was that the clergy- 
man “knew in his own heart” that this tradition is true. Now it is 
obvious that if we could know historical or metaphysical matters in this 
intuitive manner, scholarship and historical research would be wholly 
unnecessary. 

The difficulty is that there are people who “ know ” all sorts of things 
in this way. I once met a man who on the same subjective ground was 
absolutely sure that he was Napoleon. Even as careful an introspectionist 
as William James was led into error by this method, at least on one oc- 


270 


casion. James tried to find out by introspection what is the “ inmost self ” 
of each of us. He concluded that it was a bodily feeling, and that it was 
located somewhere in the muscles of the head and neck. It is obvious that 
another introspectionist might locate it somewhere else in the body, assum- 
ing that it could be located at all. Certainly physiology should have some- 
thing to say about a matter of this sort and physiology is an objective 
science. 


Now behaviorism would avoid such errors as those of introspection- 
ism by simply abandoning introspectionism along with all the phenomena 
that are commonly studied by this method. It simply has no use for the 
alleged subjective facts of mental life. It is not concerned at all with 
anything that goes on inside of us, except, of course, those physiological 
processes which can be studied in laboratories. Mental life thus becomes 
a phenomenon of the objective world, and its facts and laws are studied, 
not by a student observing his own feelings, but by an outside observer 
using the methods of careful measurement, blood analysis, and controlled 
experimentation. In other words, as I indicated in the first lecture, be- 
haviorism adapts to the study of human reactions the identical methods 
used in the study of animal psychology. As the animal cannot talk, the 
psychologist is not concerned with that it thinks or feels; he is concerned 
with what it does, when stimulated in various ways. 


Animal psychology and physiology have, by thus working with ani- 
mals, in recent years made great advance over the mixture of common 
sense and guess work which characterized them a generation ago. So in 
the study of human psychology, the behaviorist warns the student that he 
must confine himself strictly to those facts which can be stated in terms of 
“ stimulus and response.” The assumption is that the organism is by 
nature endowed with characteristic modes of response, the result of its 
inherited physical organization. These responses are purely mechanical 
movements of the organs of the body. They take place regularly and in 
characteristic manner when the appropriate stimulus is given. The stimulus 
too is a fact of the material world. So the behaviorist believes that psy- 
chology is not a science of an invisible and mysterious entity known as 
“ Mind,” but is as purely a study of movements of particles of matter 
and the causal relations of such movements, as is the science of electrical 
engineering. 


The aim of psychology, then, becomes essentially practical. It is to 
“ predict and control” human behavior. Human behavior can be con- 
trolled in the following manner. The original reflexes may be “ con- 
ditioned ;” that is, a stimulus which ordinarily sends impulses to a certain 
organ, or reaction pattern, may be made to result in another and quite 
different mode of response. For instance, a person may be put in a labora- 
tory and an electrical apparatus so arranged that whenever he sees certain 
differences in color he may be given a shock which will cause an automatic 
jerk of the muscles of his arm. After this process has been continued for 
some time, the shock may be discontinued and the arm will give the 
spasmodic movement when the differences in color are observed. This 
process is purely automatic and may be used in determing a subject’s 
sensitiveness to differences in color or any other difference. The “ con- 
ditioned reflex ” is particularly important, because it is said that all learn- 
ing and habit formation consist in the conditioning of original modes of 
response in one way or another, 


2/1 


Behaviorism vs. Introspectionism. 


In order to gain a more detailed knowledge of this subject, I wish to 
discuss the writings of Dr. John B. Watson, the leading exponent of Be- 
haviorism. I do not think that I have any prejudice - in the matter. I 
have great respect for Dr. Watson, but it may be that my training has been 
such that I do not quite understand him. ‘As I want to be fair, I have 
invited Dr. Watson to give a course of lectures under the auspices of The 
People’s Institute. These lectures are published by The People’s Institute 
Publishing Company, under the general title ‘“ Behaviorism.” 


Let us now note the difference in point of view between Dr. Watson’s 
work and the “ Psychology ” of Professor Burtis Burr Breese, of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati. Breese defines psychology as “ that study whose task 
it is to point out and organize the observable facts of conscious life, and to 
formulate theories and hypotheses necessary to explain these facts.” He 
says that modern psychology differs from the older in that it concerns itself 
more with the facts and less with the nature of consciousness. But 
psychology is still the science of consciousness or of mind. It is radically 
different from the other sciences. The fundamental method of psychology 
is the observation of “the mental states and processes taking place in our 
own minds, and second, the observation of the behavior of others by means 
of which we may infer the presence and nature of their mental states.’’ 


. . . ~~ The first form of observation gives us direct knowledge of our 
own conscious life and has been termed introspection ; SUT Os 
spection in psychology is observation of mental facts, while observation in 
other sciences is observation of material facts.’ . . . “In the mate- 
riel sciences the uniformities are found in terms of quantity, the millimeter, 
the gram, etc. In psychology, the uniformities are in terms of quality, the 
quality of experience.” Breese deals with such subjects as Attention, 
Sensation, Perception, Memory, Imagination, Judgment, Feeling, Con- 
sciousness, the Self, etc. 


Now note the difference when we turn to Dr. Watson’s book. There 
is not a word in it about consciousness, or feeling, or selfhood, or imagina- 
tion, or attention, or any of those things with which psychology has been 
busied during most of its history. We are told that psychology is the 
science of behavior. “It attempts to formulate through systematic ob- 
servation and experimentation the laws and principles which underlie 
man’s reactions.”’ Psychology is primarily busy with the matter of adjust- 
ment to environment. The form of this adjustment is determined by 
something. In every act of adjustment there is a stimulus and a response. 
“ The goal of psychological study is the ascertaining of such data and laws 
that, given the stimulus, psychology can determine what the response will 
be. Or, on the other hand, given response, it can specify the nature of 
the effective stimulus.” 


The responses may be divided into two kinds: hereditary modes of 
response and acquired modes of response. Each of these may be 
divided into implicit or explicit bodily movements. The implicit movements 
are the subtle ones which take place within the body itself, in the muscles 
and glands, etc. The explicit movements are those which we ordinarily 
notice in overt bodily activity. But the implicit and explicit responses are 
alike purely organic and physiological. The implicit hereditary responses 


272 


include the whole system of activities or secretions of the ductless glands, 
located in various parts of the body; also changes in the circulation of the 
blood and muscular responses in the “ unstriped”’ muscle tissue. Explicit 
hereditary responses include the observable instinctive and emotional re- 
actions, such as we see in sneezing, blinking, dodging, fear, rage and love. 
Acquired modes of response are, of course habits. They consist of con- 
ditioned reflexes. The explicit habit responses are actions like unlocking 
the door, playing tennis, talking; in fact, most things we learn to do 
Implicit bodily habits are, first of all, sub-vocal talking or “ thinking ;” 
secondly, the system of conditioned reflexes in the various glands and un- 
striped muscular mechanisms. 


Before saying a word about each of these divisions of this subject, 
it is well to notice that Watson, like other contemporary psychologists, 
gives an account of the physical basis of mental life, although he would 
never use these terms. He speaks of “receptors and their stimuli.” He 
gives an excellent physiological account of the structure of the nervous 
system, the nature of the neurons, and the anatomy and physiology of what 
other psychologists would call the sense organs. To Watson, however, the 
eye and the ear are not “sense organs.” They are mechanical contrivances 
the function of which is to pick up a stimulus from the environment and 
start it on its way as a nerve impulse to an appropriate “organ of re- 
sponse.” These organs of response are also studied in some detail, espe- 
cially the physiology of muscle fibres and the endocrine glands. Emphasis 
is laid upon the function of such glands in those responses of the body 
which other psychologists call “ emotion.” 


With the hereditary modes of response, behaviorism has probably done 
its best work, though much remains yet to be done. Watson’s method of 
studying instinct is illuminating. Instinct is defined as the hereditary mode 
of response of the pattern reaction type. In order to understand instinct 
in human beings, therefore, it is necessary to study an individual from the 
hour of his birth to maturity, to know just when and under what condi- 
tions these hereditary reaction patterns appear. However, as most of 
the patterns become modified by habit very early in life, the most im- 
portant age for the study of instincts is infancy. 


Watson’s study of babies is famous in psychology. It is too ex- 
tended for us to enter into discussion of it. A few facts, however, may 
be singled out. For instance, there is the grasping reflex which infants 
lose after the first few days of life. It was found that most babies can 
support their full weight for a longer or shorter period of time, hanging 
by either hand. This instinct we have perhaps inherited from our arboreal 
ancestors. The crawling instinct appears somewhere about the 90th to 
115th day. Various positive and negative reaction tendencies of children 
have been studied. These have much to do with emotion. The fear re- 
sponse seems to be stimulated by fewer objects than most people imagine. 
Many of our alleged instinctive fears are not instinctive at all, but are 
conditioned. Large numbers of children were experimented with; they 
were shown various animals—bats and mice and snakes—and even took 
them in their hands, without displaying any original tendencies to shrink 
from these creatures. The fear response in small children is commonly 
excited by loud noises, or by the sudden removal of support from under- 
neath so that the child falls a short distance. Rage is commonly stimu- 


273 


lated by restricting the movements of the child’s arms and legs. The 
original response of the emotion of Jove may be produced by stroking the 
child’s body. Hence it is held that the erotic instinct instead of appearing 
on maturity, as many think it does, is an original mode of response. 


The method Watson has used in studying these modes of response 
has been of great value in clearing up much of the confusion about in- 
stinct and emotion. There has been much guess work and unsatisfactory 
writing on this subject and very little systematic observation. The list of 
instincts in man is much shorter, according to Dr. Watson, than according 
to psychologists like McDougall and James. The method of studying 
emotion by observing the non-adaptive and random movements of various 
bodily organs, also of carefully noting the effects of the secretion of the 
thyroid and suprarenal glands—notably, the amount of sugar discharged 
into the blood—has, in some instances, enabled the psychologists to find 
a definite physiological basis for measuring the emotions. 


Perhaps the most revolutionizing theory Watson holds is the theory 
that thinking is sub-vocal talking. As we learn to give names to the ob- 
jects about us, we may juggle these words in our implicit responses in 
such ways that new patterns are formed. In other words, the implicit 
modes of response that go on in the “ laryngeal processes ” have the func- 
tion of directing the movements of the entire organism. These implicit 
language habits come to issue finally in overt action. There is nothing at 
all mysterious about thinking, therefore. It is not an “ intra-cerebral ” 
function. “ Could we bring thinking out for observation as readily as we 
can tennis playing or rowing, the need for ‘explaining’ it would dis- 
appear.” It would be seen that thinking consists merely of conditioned 
bodily reflexes like any other form of muscular activity. 


Of course, this view is an hypothesis. I do not believe that Watson 
or any other behaviorist would maintain that it is verified. I do not see 
just how it could be verified by experiment, and there are many facts 
which seem to contravert it. Much thinking, of course, takes place in 
words, but to deny that there are any tmages seems to me to be going 
pretty far. I wonder if the mechanical inventor may not on occasion 
see in imagination the contrivance which he proposes to create. And there 
is such thinking as goes on in higher mathematics, where the implications 
are not even stateable in verbal terminology. I wonder just how, on this 
basis, the behaviorist would deal with certain logical relationships and 
judgments. For instance, what constitutes the proof of a proposition? 
All these and other difficulties have been raised against this behaviorist 
account of thinking. In my lecture on “How We Think,” the point 
is made that thinking contains, at least sometimes, a “ consideration of ends” 
which the behaviorist theory seems to ignore. However, behaviorism has 
here set before students of psychology an interesting problem and a new 
challenge, and we may expect a good deal of research on this subject in 
the next few years. The theory is at any rate ingenious, even though it 
is doubtless inspired, in part, by the behaviorist’s attempt to be consistent 
and hence to explain behavior while leaving out consciousness. 


As to whether the behaviorist really means that there is no such 
thing as consciousness, I doubt if the representatives of this school are 


274 


themselves clear. In an early paper, Dr. Watson has said: “ Will there 
be left over in psychology a world of pure psychics, to use Yerke’s term? 
I confess I do not know. The plans which I most favor for psychology 
lead practically to the ignoring of consciousness in the sense that that 
term is used by psychologists to-day. I have virtually denied that this 
realm of psychics is open to experimental investigation. I do not wish to 
go further into the problem at present because it leads inevitably over 
into metaphysics. If you will grant the behaviorist the right to use con- 
sciousness in the same way that other natural scientists employ it—that 
is, without making consciousness a special object of observation—you 
have granted all that my thesis requires.’ 


What Watson intends to imply in this passage is that the traditional 
psychology is somewhat to blame for the confusion regarding the sub- 
ject, which to my mind exists even in the behaviorist school. Psycholo- 
gists have sometimes spoken of consciousness as if it were a thing apart, 
the word to be spelled with a Capital C. Consciousness, from this view. 
is a non-material, invisible, spiritual entity, belonging to the world of 
“spirit” rather than that of matter. Of course, from this point of view 
the discussion of consciousness properly belongs to metaphysics rather 
than to science, and the behaviorist is quite justified in keeping his dis- 
cussion within the realm of psychology. He may, therefore, with perfect 
propriety say that there may be such a mysterious entity, just as James 
argues that there may be such a thing as the soul. But granting its exist- 
ence he may correctly say that science as science is not interested in it. 


On the other hand, psychologists sometimes speak of consciousness 
as an element in, or a quality of, certain facts of behavior; that is, certain 
nerve processes may become conscious. ‘This is not to say that psy- 
chology is merely the science of consciousness. But it is to say that com- 
mon sense and universal experience evidently support the view that some 
of our actions have this quality. As a quality in the response of the or- 
ganism to its stimulus, it would seem that this quality should be studied 
along with the other qualities in that response, and that to ignore it is 
seriously to limit the scope of psychology. 


But behaviorists do not merely say that though consciousness in this 
latter sense exists, they are not interested in it. Many of their state- 
ments go farther and indicate frequently a flat denial of the existence of 
consciousness at all. In other words, behaviorism has a tendency to form 
an alliance with mechanistic metaphysics. That is, it assumes what in 
another lecture I call the “automaton theory.” This theory means that 
consciousness produces no effects in the material world, since all the 
movements of the particles of matter form a coherent and self-perpet- 
uating series. This theory was amply discussed by William James. It 
is not new. It is really a metaphysical doctrine. It is determinism, the 
assumption that the universe is ultimately so constituted that its essence 
is the causal connection among all the varied phenomena in it. Many 
researches in the sciences, particularly in the physical sciences, seem to 
substantiate such a view. And there are many biologists, psychologists, 
and sociologists who envy the exactness and simplicity of chemistry and 
physics, and feel that they cannot give the true explanation of any kind 
of organic behavior unless they can state it in terms that properly belong 
to these sciences. 


2/5 


Reduced to its logical conclusion, this theory means that physical and 
chemical reactions are the only reactions there are in nature, and that the 
socalled psychological reactions to stimuli, in spite of the appearances to 
the contrary, are really determined in some such manner as purely in- 
organic changes are determined. What those who hold this theory seem 
to forget is that even in the study of the inorganic world, scientific 
ideas are really symbols, figures of speech, human devices, selected and 
often artificial likenesses among objects, all from the human point of view. 
In other words, scientific ideas are instruments devised by man, the value 
of which is the practical hold they give us upon the environment in which 
we live. Even the most theoretical propositions of science have in the 
end this utilitarian function. They are teleological. And without the 
fact that we are, as human beings, “interested spectators’ of nature, see- 
ing it from our own point of view, scientific principles become impossible. 


Hence, it is an assumption of faith on the part of scientists to say 
that all the phenomena of the universe may be expressed in terms of 
scientific logic, for science has by no means as yet achieved its goal. The 
very idea that our human and partial reasoning may give us a picture of 
the universe as a whole and its general laws, is a rationalistic assumption; 
in fact, a metaphysical dogma. There are many “ pluralists”? who hold 
that science is merely one possible view of reality; a view which is justi- 
fiable because of its results in experience. Hence, human experience be- 
comes the ultimate judge, even of scientific truth. This view is likewise 
a metaphysical assumption and I give it to show that its alternative too is 
metaphysical, and not scientific. 


Behaviorism, then, may be either one of two things. First, a method 
of study. Second, a theory as to the ultimate constitution of mind. These 
two are often confused in the writings of behavior psychologists. The 
latter, the mechanistic metaphysical theory, we shall have to dismiss be- 
because its assumptions lie beyond the radius of psychology. The former, 
that is, behaviorism as a method is something to which there can be no 
scientific objection. 


As a method behaviorism has many advantages over the others. It 
has the advantages of simplicity, accuracy, and objectivity. Also, it has 
the advantage of integrating the psychological method with that employed 
in the other sciences, and hence of being more consistent with the whole 
body of Scientific knowledge. But to say that the behaviorist method is 
the only method is to beg the question, as we shall see presently. As I 
have suggested, behaviorism has one disadvantage when it is proposed as 
the only method. ‘There are many problems of psychological interest 
which it dismisses altogether too lightly, many problems of importance to 
the social psychologist, for instance, which so far as I can see, it does not 
help us to solve. Watson says that the aim of psychology is to predict 
and to control. But is that all? Does this simply mean that psychology 
is to give us a device for manipulating people? Has it nothing to say 
about the value of the ends toward which such methods of control are 
made? 


In other words, is psychology to become merely a new device for 
“putting things over” people? Or is it to have anything to say about 
the general satisfactoriness of the things to be “put over?” If so, then. 
how can we ignore all consideration of human feelings? What we need 


276 


is a psychological criterion of popular ethical ideas, of the various ten- 
dencies in democracy, of propaganda, of public opinion, and crowd be- 
havior. It is necessary for the student of social psychology to learn the 
true motives of many popular movements, and often these motives are 
very different from the professed ones. It is only by analysing the fic- 
tions and wish-fancies that motivate people in this respect that we can 
ever find such a criterion. 


It is altogether too general to say that certain forms of social be- 
havior are acquired forms or habits, and others are inherited modes of 
response. We wish to know just how these acquired habits are related to 
the social behavior patterns of people; how they grow out of an in- 
dividual’s past, and what is their unconscious meaning. There has been 
too much honest work done in psychopathology during the last genera- 
tion to have the whole achievement of Freud and his followers dismissed 
with a wave of the hand. Much of the terminology of psychopathology 
could well be revised, and many of its discoveries could doubtless be re- 
stated in behaviorist terms. But we are less concerned about the phrases in 
which psychological facts may be stated than we are about the discovery 
of the facts themselves. 


Are not Watson’s very words “ predict”? and “control” self-con- 
tradictory? The word “ predict” is the outgrowth of the mechanistic or 
deterministic point of view and its implication is that given certain situa- 
tions only such and such responses may be expected. Hence, there are 
no alternatives, if we only knew the whole story of the causes of an in- 
dividual’s behavior. But now in this case the word “control” becomes 
somewhat irrelevant. Why should we seek to control someone’s behavior, 
except that we prefer to have him do one thing rather than another? And 
even though it could be shown, which as yet it has not been, that given a 
certain situation there is only one response possible,—so that the individual 
whom we are manipulating has no choice in the matter: yet does not our 
attempt to control him mean that the controller has some choice? Hence, 
choice and selection are really presupposed. 


Again, behaviorism, valuable as it is so far as it goes, gives too 
simple an account of the more complicated forms of behavior. Dr. Wat- 
son says that in order to be able to predict accurately the behavior of an 
individual it is necessary that we know his whole past, since he has been 
in the process of having his reflexes conditioned and reconditioned from 
the beginning. Well and good. But how specifically are we to know the 
details of that past by the strict use of the behavior method? Many ex- 
periences in the individual’s past have been forgotten and may only be 
restored to memory by the method of the psychoanalytical procedure. 


Moreover, the behaviorist account of personality, to my mind, is a 
surface view as compared with that of the best work which has been done 
by psycho-pathologists, or even by some of the introspectionists,—if 
James is to be included among the latter. It will be borne in mind that 
by the methods of psychopathology, some of the deepest underlying de- 
terminants of behavior may be brought to light. Infantile experiences 
and tendencies, the influence of the parents, and the child’s secret affec- 
tions, fixations and resentments, his growing thought about himself, the 
images in which he has in years past pictured his own future, the struggles 
that accompanied his psycho-sexual development, with the many shynesses, 


277 


attractions, and repulsions, together with thousands of curious defence 
mechanisms and imaginary escapes from reality have contributed to make 
the individual what he is to-day. The reading of the case report of a careful 
psychoanalysis is like the reading of an elaborate account of a suppressed 
biography, containing the very things which are never brought to light by 
any other method. Even as such an analysis does not, by any means, 
give to the investigator an adequate account of an individual’s past. To 
know an individual’s past one must have lived through that past himself ; 
in other words, one must be that individual. Of course, there may be 
much very shrewd guess work on the part of an investigator; but cer- 
tainly from the behaviorist point of view the indulgence of such guess 
work is particularly in conflict with the rigid requirements which be- 
haviorism sets up for scientific psychology. 


Behaviorism and Personality. 


Note the simplicity of Dr. Watson’s suggestions for the study of 
“personality.” Space here is too brief to give anything like an adequate 
account of his criteria. First, there is a suggestion of the intelligence tests 
of the Binet type and others. But in cases where the individual is too 
“complex ” to be rated in this way, other tests are suggested to show the 
range of information, learning ability, retentiveness and the accuracy of 
his observations under simple conditions. But it has already been demon- 
strated by many psycho-pathologists that in all these responses, the indi- 
vidual’s functions may be impaired by an unconscious emotional complex. 
For instance, in the word-association tests of Jung, it has been shown 
that where such a complex is touched by a test word, the “ reaction time ” 
is uniformly lengthened. 


Again, Dr. Watson suggests a general survey of the instinctive and 
emotional equipment and attitude, and the number and variety of the in- 
dividual’s “drives” to activity. Does one display a normal amount of 
curiosity; has he a “knack of doing things with his hands;” what par- 
ticular bents and hobbies has he; what is the history of his early sex 
enlightenments, sex attachments, and so on? This last is a problem which 
can never be answered except by the method of psycho-analysis. Again, 
are the individual’s emotional reactions well balanced? ‘This suggestion 
is altogether too general. 


In the study of a person’s general habits of work, the following ques- 
tions are suggested for consideration: Is he punctual? Does he give up 
easily? Does he work to his limit? Is he adverse to having extra duties 
put upon him? Does he work by rule of thumb? Is he fixed upon his 
present level of attainment or is he making progress? Each one of these 
questions suggests that back of it a hundred others should be asked. Cer- 
tainly, in all these particulars, circumstances alter cases, not only circum- 
stances of the present environment, but circumstances which may have 
affected the individual in early childhood and have been long forgotten. 


Again, the activity level is taken as an important element in personal- 
ity. Is the individual lazy or industrious? Is he talkative? Is he given 
to frequent laughter and loud conversation? Are his movements in good 
form or is he awkward? And so forth. Again, social adaptability is taken 
into account. How many intimate friends has the individual? What is 
the history of his family relationships? How easily does he get acquainted 


278 


with people? How loyal is he? How tactful? Is his society sought by 
others? Here also, we seem to be dealing with the widest generaliza- 
tions. Any one of these particulars may be the result of influences operat- 
ing throughout an entire life history. And to ignore such influences would 
be to take merely a “ snap judgment.” The same is true of the questions sug- 
gested to determine capacity in recreation and sports; or organized sex-life 
or reaction to conventional standards. Whether one is boastful in con- 
quests, or prudish and easily shocked, trustworthy in money matters, or a 
flirt, a lover of music, over-meticulous or foppish, all depends very much 
on how the investigator defines these terms. Surely for adequate study of 
personality something more specific, something that will give intimate 
insight into the causes of behavior and some knowledge of the integration 
of a whole personality is needed. 


The behaviorist view of personality is a curiously mechanistic one. 
We are told that personality is merely the organism at work. Those who 
regard personality in any other way are said to be “ superstitious people” 
who either have a romantic view of persons or are the victims of erroneous 
religious considerations. Personality as a whole is compared .to a gas 
engine. The way in which a gas engine works is its “ personality” and 
that is all there is to it. When the separate parts work together efficiently 
so that the engine runs smoothly, its personality is well integrated; when 
not, it shows that the engine has a “personality disturbance” of some 
kind. 


The behaviorist attempt to give an account of personality means that 
he has to resort to what I want to call an addative process. Having first 
in his laboratory separated behavior into a number of specific reflexes, in- 
herited or conditioned, the behaviorist, in the end, seeks to reintegrate 
his subject by the simple process of putting his “ Humpty-Dumpty together 
again.” Now, of course, a unity so achieved must necessarily be artificial 
and of the inorganic type. The gas engine has truly an inorganic unity. 
One builds a gas engine by assembling parts, which in the state of nature 
may have been widely distributed in space. But the unity so achieved is 
merely that of a balance of forces. 


The unity of an organism is different. A tree begins its life as a 
single cell and grows out from that simple center. Its unity is central and 
given. However great the ramifications of its roots and branches and 
leaves may be, there runs through it all, as a living organism, a unity 
which is very different from that of a machine. The structure of a ma- 
chine is achieved from without in; that of an organism from within out. 
No strictly mechanistic theory of organic functioning seems to me to take 
this fact adequately into account. 


In conclusion, behaviorism is, properly speaking, not a theory of the 
nature of mind. It is a method of study, an application of the scientific 
technique of animal psychology to human behavior. Such a method nat- 
urally limits the scope of psychology, but it does so in the interest of clear- 
ness and of scientific accuracy. And unless the assertion is made that no 
other method is permissible, such a limitation is quite justifiable even 
though it leaves many important questions unanswered. On the whole, 
the behaviorist should be given every opportunity to pursue this method 
as far as it can be pursued. The behaviorist’s assertion that all behavior 
may be explained in his terms should not arouse opposition. It is merely 


279 


his way of expressing the hope that he may some day be successful in 
advancing scientific knowledge. Should he ever succeed in reaching his 
goal, there can be no quarrel with his success, for it will then have been 
established as scientific truth. Certainly there should be no opposition 
to this method on the ground that we dislike to have the explanation of our 
mental life so simplified. Naturally, each of us considers himself unique 
and resents the attempt to account for his personal experience in the uni- 
versal formulas of science. Certainly much of the opposition to behavior- 
ism is based on ground which is wholly irrelevant. Often it is the resuit 
of a general opposition to the accumulation of the body of accurate scien- 
tific knowledge. But in so far as the behaviorist succeeds in adding to that 
body of knowledge he is on the right course, 








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DA DX, 


How much Progress can Human Nature Stand ? 





HOW MUCH PROGRESS CAN HUMAN 
NATURE STAND: 


STUDY of social psychology should include the discussion of a men- 
tal fact which not only is of great importance in the thinking of our 
age, but is, in a way, characteristic of it. What is the psychological mean- 
ing of our modern faith in progress? ‘This faith does not seem to have 
characterized the thought of earlier ages in the way that it does our own. 
It is essentially a modern and Western belief. The distinguished English 
scholar, Mr. Bertrand Russell, says of the Chinese that they have no in- 
terest in progress; in fact, when you speak to them about it, they do not 
know what you mean; they are satisfied to keep things as they are. From 
the literature of the Ancients I do not find that the idea of progress 
played any great part in their civilization. Greece in the Periclean age 
made great progress, but the Atheneans do not seem to have had the con- 
cept of progress as such. Medieval Christianity was essentially conserva- 
tive. Its aim was to preserve, without corruption from human sources, 
sacred tradition and institutions. Change was not welcome, though, of 
course, it did occur. Even the men who participated in the Protestant 
Reformation did not regard their movement as a “ progressive” one. 
They did not speak as some of our present day progressives speak, saying 
that in a changing world, religion also must change. They regarded their 
movement as a return to pure primitive Christianity. This was the ideal 
which they sought to achieve. It was an ideal which belonged to the 
past; not to the future. 


A. step in human advance as great, perhaps, as any we have had in 
history was made by the Humanists of the Renaissance; yet these men 
felt rather that they were reviving the values of a civilization that had 
long been dead. They were concerned with the writings of the ancients, 
and the very movement in which they participated was called the Re- 
naissance, “ rebirth;” that is, the revival of ancient culture. Thus it has 
been the thought of most men down to modern times that the “ golden 
age’”’ lay in the past; that the ancients possessed a wisdom which sub- 
sequent generations must preserve; that the fathers were wiser than the 
sons. Hence, tradition and authority have held sway. Men have felt that 
their greatest service to civilization was to preserve from decline that 
which had once been delivered to man. 


The idea of progress seems to have taken hold of the minds of men 
about the time of the transfer of power from the classes to the masses. 
It is, in a sense, a democratic belief. And the golden age is transferred 
from the past to the future. The future takes on utopian colors and men 
begin to feel that with the passing of time they are walking toward the 
light. A new optimism of the masses has thus come to earth. Change is 
welcome and change is held to be good in itself. The flow of time which 
to many wise men of the past was that which ate up all things, is held by 
moderns to be that which brings all things. ‘“‘ Every day and in every 
way ” everybody is “ getting better and better.”’ The hard lot of man on 
earth is only a temporary condition. The future of humanity is bright. 
It is assured. And the present is better than anything that has ever been 
before. Up-to-dateness becomes a standard of value. 


[283] 


284 


Progress is to be shared by all. It is like the gospel of grace: “ Who- 
soever will may come.” One need only believe in progress, work for 
progress, to possess The Good. The philosophers praise progress; men 
live for it; evolution seems to prove it; few doubt it, or ask whether it 
is all good. It was, during the last century, held to be enough that we 
were all progressing toward that “ far-off divine event’ toward which the 
whole creation moves. Progress is a new Law and a new Gospel. It isa 
cosmic fact which, working through the forces of society, gives to the 
world a meaning of its own, and is in itself enough to justify existence. 


To us in America this faith in progress is, to a great extent, ap- 
parently, a deduction from fact. We are of the new world; our country 
is still young, its resources are vast and promising and their development 
and exploitation has been rapid indeed. Millions here have gained a new 
start in life, a new self-reliance, America has emancipated many men from 
the slavery of the old world. The country has grown rapidly. New fields 
annually blossom in what was hitherto desert and forest. Cities have 
grown to be metropolitan centers in the life-time of a single generation. 
New mechanical inventions, each more wonderful than the last, have 
fascinated the imagination of men and have transformed their ways of 
life. The productivity of labor has been increased. New comforts have 
been added to living and with each step of advance there have come new 
and unexpected demands and satisfactions and achievements. Living has 
become something of an adventure. Scientific knowledge of the world 
has come to us with startling rapidity. Education and the franchise have 
been extended until they have become wellnigh universal. Organization 
has grown; the functions of government have been extended; so that we 
find our whole way of life radically different from that of one hundred 
years ago. 


Who then can doubt progress? I do not. In raising this ques- 
tion, “how much progress can human nature stand?” I am not suggest- 
ing a reactionary view. There have always been men who felt that the 
world was becoming so complex that life in it was too strenuous. I am 
not here to preach “ the simple life,” nor to suggest the “return ‘to nature.” 
Neither is it my purpose to plead for progressivism. ‘There is a great 
deal of that being done, and I am not sure that I know just what is meant 
by it. Almost anything may be called progressive. Not long ago I noticed 
an advertisement in a weekly paper of a series of articles purporting to 
set forth a new sex morality. The reader was urged to “ be progressive.” 
and read these articles. There are certain religionists who have just dis- 
covered what most educated people have been thinking for half a century 
and are proclaiming a “ progressive religion.” Not long ago I saw an 
advertisement which read “ Progressive Hot Air Furnace.” What I wish’ 
to know about progress is what it is doing to us? J wish to know what; 
we mean by progress; in what direction we are progressing; and what we 
shall be like when we get there. 


Now, what is progress? I doubt if many people try specifically to 
answer this question. “ Why, progress is just progress; just general im- 
provement.” Yet it ought to be possible for us to have some definite 
ideas as to what progress is. In concrete cases we use the term in this 
definite way. If a man, for instance, has a position where he feels that 


285 


he cannot succeed, where promotion to a position of greater responsibility 
or increase in pay seems to be out of the question, he will probably say, 
“TI think I will leave this job. I cannot make any progress here.” Again, 
if a person undertakes a task, the completion of which requires some time 
—like learning to play golf or to make music, acquiring a language, build- 
ing a house, organizing a movement, or writing a book—his friends may 
ask him if he is making any progress. Now what do we mean by prog- 
ress in this sense? We obviously mean the nearing of a goal, the 
achievement of an end. By progress, then, we mean that we are in the 
way of realizing any sort of purpose. 


6 


Hence, by the progress of society, or “ social progress,” we mean 
several things. In the broadest sense, progress would mean the sum- 
total of all achievements of ends. Anything men are doing could be 
called progress. The difficulty with this conception of progress is that it 
is too general, since it includes all the conflicting purposes of men. And 
it is doubtful if we can say that there is more progress now than in 
former ages, since men have always been realizing some sort of purposes. 
The other evening as I left the house to give a lecture, 1 saw some com- 
motion in the street. There was a large truck standing near the corner of 
Seventh Avenue. It seems that this truck was loaded with a valuable cargo 
of silk. Some robbers had boarded the truck near Washington Square, 
bound the driver and started off with their spoils. They made excellent 
progress until they reached the corner of Seventh Avenue, when something 
happened to the engine. Then they had to make a different kind of prog- 
ress. But as they were more progressive than the police, they got away. 


Such a general view of progress, then, still further necessitates the 
determination of desirable ends. Else anything becomes progress. 
Shakespeare’s Iago conceives a diabolical scheme for the destruction of 
the happiness of Othello and Desdemona. He gets on famously. Is his 
success progress? A group of dishonest politicians set out to control the 
government and exploit it shamelessly. Is their action progress? France 
is Just now making much headway in the plan of certain French politicians 
and industrialists to crush Germany. Could we call their action progress? 
The difficulty is that men cannot agree here as to what ends are 
progressive. 


Shall we say, then, that there must be some special trend or tendency 
running through an age in order that there may be progress? Here, too, 
we are confronted with the same difficulty. Mankind is divided into 
various struggle groups, each of which believes that there is a tendency 
making for the achievement of its own ends or for the dominance of its 
own particular crowd. Thus, the “ Fundamentalists” would interpret 
progress as the gradual increase in the number of persons who are op- 
posed to the teaching of evolution. The more “monkey legislatures” 
there are, the more progressive these people feel our age is. To the 
scientist this would not be progress at all. He would conceive of progress 
as the advance in the naturalistic explanation of phenomena. The pro- 
hibitionist conceives of progress as the more and more successful en- 
forcement of the Eighteenth amendment. The Ku Klux Klan feels that 
the world is progressing when the partisan religious strife of the Seven- 
teenth Century is being revived. To the Socialist progress is the in- 
evitable law of “ evolution and revolution,” making toward the Co-opera- 


286 


tive Commonwealth. To the Capitalist progress is business prosperity. 
To many men progress means the increase of democracy; and yet to 
Nietzsche democarcy was not progress at all, but decadence. Hence, the 
idea that progress is a single, universal tendency in society or dominant 
trend is an idea that easily lends itself to propaganda of all sorts. There 
must be some criterion before we can know what is progress. 


There is no such thing as progress in general. Progress is not a uni- 
form, universal tendency to improvement. What we always see is the 
rise and decline of some specific curve of achievement. Gothic archi- 
tecture had its development and after reaching a certain point of per- 
fection, it remained static, or became corrupted as Renaissance art in- 
fluenced it. Likewise, Greek sculpture had its rise and decline. Also 
ancient philosophy; Egyptian art; Roman imperialism; Medieval knight- 
hood; English law, and modern mechanics. Each of these interests has 
its special day after which progress in that direction cease. And no age 
shows progress uniformly in all respects. 


This view of progress which I have just sketched is admirably set 
forth by Dr. Alexander Goldenweiser, and in somewhat modified form 
by Dr. Flinders Petrie in his little book, “ The Revolutions of Civiliza- 
tion.” Petrie shows that there have been eight periods of civilization in 
each of which a special culture has had its rise and decline. He takes sculp- 
ture as the basis for his study of these periods and on this basis would sepa- 
rate the last four civilizations somewhat as follows, to note a few of his 
epochs :—From 4750 B. C. to 3450 B. C., from 3450 B. C. to 1550 B. C., 
from 1550 B. C. to 450 B. C., from 450 B. C. to 1240 A. D. He suggests 
that the curve which has its climax at this last date, is now on the decline. 
He finds that the zero point of sculpture does not come at the same time 
as the zero point of other arts. Painting reaches its zero point about 160 
years later; literature 360; mechanics 550; science and wealth something 
over 650. 


All this means that an age which is on the upward curve in some 
aspects of its life is on the downward curve in others. There is no uni- 
formly creative evolution in society. This, then, is progress: the develop- 
ment of some specific institutions of art or science, over a certain length of 
time. There is no law of progress in general. There is as much decline 
in history as there is advance—different things at different times reach- 
ing their period of culmination and subsequent decay. At any period in 
history, both these processes are taking place. The Fifth Century B. C. 
made progress in art, philosophy and science. But at that time, the whole 
social structure was beginning to crumble and perhaps the racial stock 
was already on the decline in the Periclean age. The Roman Empire 
made progress in government and law until the climax was reached in the 
Code of Justinian in the beginning of the Sixth Century. But during this 
same period, there was a general cultural decline. So much so that 
the Roman Empire itself hardly survived the formulation of this code. 
Yet, Justinian’s reign was looked upon as one of great achievement. 
The Middle Ages made progress in religion and morals and some 
progress in the arts. But there was a marked decline in government, 
industry and scholarship. The Renaissance made progress in scholar- 
ship but there was a great falling off in religion, piety and morals, 


287 


and some scholars maintain that even Renaissance painting and 
sculpture are decadent. 


So the idea of progress in general is a faith. It is a democratic 
faith. As a faith, it has value in that it gives those who hold it a 
certain youthfulness of spirit and forward look, but it does not neces- 
sarily make for profundity of thought or soundness of judgment. In 
one sense, a psychological sense, it is, in part, a device for the self- 
justification and idealization of the mass. As power comes to be more 
and more committed to the average man, that man feels that the 
world is making progress. He naturally believes in himself, and his 
own future. The mass feels that as a mass it will achieve a utopia where 
the wise men of the past have failed. The faith in progress also comes 
in as a handy justification of the abuses of a democratic age. Is the 
world cheap and tawdry? Have the chosen representatives of the 
mass made a mess of government? Has the general advance of culture 
among the people been slow and something of an imitation of the 
real thing? Do ignorance and superstition still prevail? Only be 
patient. Progress will remedy these things automatically. ‘“‘ The cure 
for democracy is more democracy.” The age of the common man 
must inevitably turn out to be the goal of all history. Surely the 
masses do nothing but create progress. 


I do not wish to dispel this comfortable illusion. But as progress is 
always along some specific line of development, it is created by the 
few who are the special workers in some particular field of endeavor. 
Progress in scholarship is created by a succession of scholars; progress 
in art is created by artists. The only conceivable general progress 
would be improvement of the racial stock. It is a favorite dogma of 
democracy that the racial stock may be improved by manipulating the 
environment, and many efforts have been put forth in the attempt to 
do this. They have not, however, been very successful. The weight 
of biological opinion is on the side of those who argue that the racial 
stock may only be inmproved by selective breeding. And there are 
many who maintain that the race instead of improving is on the 
decline inasmuch as in any generation it is the finer human types who 
do not reproduce their numbers. 


What then is progress? It is, as I say, a specific development of a 
certain aspect of life for a short period. It is achieved by a few people 
while other aspects of life remain static or turn decadent. The fruits 
of this progress may or may not be enjoyed by society as a whole. 


The Direction of Present Day Progress. 


We have seen what progress is. Now let us try to discover in 
what direction progress in our own day may be moving. To make 
this discovery we shall be obliged to examine various specific factors 
in our civilization to see whether they are on the upward or the 
downward side of the curve of progress. We shall take as a criterion 
the fact of creativeness. Where new and original thinking is taking 
place, we have progress. Where there is only imitation and 
standardization and repetition, and where the changes which occur 
are indicative of a less vigorous expenditure of mental effort, we shal! 
say that we are witnessing a decline. This is the only criterion that we 


288 


have, because if we should try any other, we should prejudice the case. 
We ought not judge the tendencies of the times by arbitrary and 
a priori attempts to predict the future. We should then be assigning 
ends rather than describing processes. Our age is undoubtedly tend- 
ing in the direction of those achievements in which there is most 
original, creative interest. It is just where there is creative activity, 
that there is progress. Let us now discuss some of these specific 
elements in civilization. 


I think most people will agree that in mechanics we are still on the 
upper curve of progress. There is an ascending scale. The develop- 
ment of mechanical contrivances goes on at an accelerating speed. 
Here there is creativeness and imagination. There is a rapidly in- 
creasing body of knowledge. Experimentation rather than appeal to 
tradition characterizes thinking about mechanical matters. During 
the last twenty-five years very revolutionizing inventions have 
appeared; such as the aeroplane, the development of the automobile, 
wireless, and the amazing advance which has been made in electrical 
mechanics. The next fifty years may be expected to bring still further 
new achievements and hence still further to revolutionize industrial 
processes. We cannot predict what the end will be because we can- . 
not foresee inventions which have not yet appeared. Neither can we 
forecast what the social effects of such inventions will be. But we 
can, with some assurance, say that the development of mechanics 
together with the effects of such development, will in one hundred 
years make the world so different from what it is now that we, could 
we come back to life then, should find ourselves in an environment 
which would be more strange to us than ours would be to Galileo, could 
he come back to earth to-day. 


As with mechanics, so with the organization of industry. During the 
last generation a large number of the most able men in the world have 
sought their careers not in the learned professions, but in the manage- 
ment of business. Business today is very different from business 
seventy-five years ago. New methods are devised; a new technique 
is being developed. Vast organizations and far-reaching projects are 
envisaged and carried through with amazing foresight and skill. 


There are some persons who do not agree with what I have just 
said. It is a common belief among certain schools of radicals that 
the present capitalist system is breaking down. There are indications 
of this fact in Europe; most of them are the after-effects of the war; 
and it can be said with much truth that capitalist interests had something 
to do with causing the war. But even bankrupt Germany had its 
Stinnes. British finance has been able, in spite of most difficult con- 
ditions, to stabilize British currency and to carry burdens undreamed 
of before the war. American financiers were never so powerful as 
to-day. On the whole, I should say, that the apparent breakdown of 
the capitalist system in certain countries is more the result of the 
breakdown of government than a decline of business sagacity. Even 
should some form of socialism be substituted for our present system 
of private ownership, it is conceivable that the creativeness in indus- 
trial organization might continue. Dr. Frank Bohn says that we are 
on the verge of a development of super-capitalism and that the organ- 


289 


ization of business will in the next fifty years reach such heights that 
it will tower above our present level, as the Woolworth Building 
towers above the old post office building on lower Broadway. 


There is science. The scientific age is by no means done. When the 
19th century closed, John Fiske wrote a book called “A Century of 
Science,” tracing the amazing progress that had been made since the 
day about one hundred years previous when Joseph Priestly discovered 
oxygen. One writing at the close of the 20th century will probably 
find that the development of science in this century will have far 
exceeded that of the previous one. I need only mention the new 
developments with radio activity and the amazing work which is being 
done on the structure of the atom, to show that we are on the verge 
of undreamed-of advance in science. 


Let us now turn to the standard of living. To many minds this is 
one of the prime indicators of progress. As I see it, there are two 
tendencies today in the general changes that have taken place in the 
standard of living. Social psychologists have defined the standard of 
living as follows: “A man’s standard of living consists in the acquire- 
ment of those things which he insists upon having even if he is obliged 
to forego marriage and parenthood.” That is to say, men may be 
separated into various groups. Some people will marry with no 
prospects and are quite willing to beget children in abject poverty. 
Their standard of living is very low. Others postpone marriage until 
there is some degree of comfort. The number of their offspring will 
be limited so that they do not have more children than they can pro- 
vide for with some expectation of giving their children better oppor- 
tunities than they themselves had. Others, let us say, the persons of 
aristocratic or genteel lineage who have suffered reverses, may forego 
marriage altogether because they cannot live in the circumstances to 
which they were born. 


Now the significance of all this for social psychology consists not merely 
in the amount of things which people insist upon having before marriage 
and parenthood, but in the kind of things they demand. Of course, the 
amount of property insisted upon has great social significance, for it is 
obvious that those who are willing to have large families without adequate 
means of supporting them are, on the whole, endowed with less foresight 
and capacity for sustained effort and self-control than those who in the 
same economic condition demand a higher standard of living. It is a 
sociological fact that the former type produce by far the largest number 
of children of any class in society; while those whose standard of living 
is higher tend not to reproduce their numbers. Many biologists see in 
this fact a serious disgenic selection for parenthood; in other words, it 
makes for the survival of the unfit. They maintain that the mental quali- 
ties which cause people to be content with a low standard of living are ine 
heritable, and hence they argue that the racial stock must inevitably decline. 
Of course, where there is a declining racial stock, there cannot long be 
progress in any direction inasmuch as genius may, by the wrong kind of 
selective breeding, be bred out of a race. 


When we come to consider the second factor in the standard of living, 
namely, the kind of things which constitute it, for different types of men, 


290 


we see evidence of the divergent tendency of which I spoke a minute ago. 
On the whole, the standard of living judged in amount of goods possessed, 
seems to be rising in western civilization owing largely to the greater in- 
crease in production. But if we consider the quality of goods possessed, 
perhaps a brief historical sketch of what it is that has set the standard of 
living may be of interest to us. Thorstein Veblen, in his book, “‘ The Theory 
of the Leisure Class,” if I understand him correctly, argues that in times 
gone by, the master class indulged itself in what he calls “ conspicuous 
leisure.” Men displayed their wealth because such display gave evidence 
of the fact that they were masters of many servants and social position 
came to be associated with such display. I think that this is only partially 
correct. Many of the gentry of the 17th and 18th centuries and before have 
often been comparatively poor. But they have insisted on a certain degree 
of culture, education, and good taste, and genteel manners. These things 
came to be the hallmarks of gentility. They were more insisted upon than 
was the mere possession of wealth. In fact, the aristocrat and noble 
have always regarded the rich man who did not have these things with 
ridicule and contempt. Wealth, therefore, for the upper class in old so- 
cieties was not an end. It was rather a means, necessary for the leisure 
required to support a high degree of culture. It was in this culture rather 
than in mere possession that the noble and the gentleman felt themselves 
superior persons. 


At the time of the French Revolution in the 18th century a class of 
plebeians, the bourgeois, had risen to such wealth that its members often 
possessed more of this world’s goods than did the gentry or aristocracy. 
But the bourgeois class lacked the culture of the latter. Hence its mem- 
bers—of course, there were many notable exceptions—tended to make 
possession of wealth a criterion of personal superiority, because wealth was 
a thing they themselves possessed; and to this they added a sort of imita- 
tion of the culture which characterized the older upper classes. With the 
opening up of industrial opportunity in America vast numbers of plebeians 
worked their way into the class of the wealthy. Wealth became an end, 
a mark of distinction, a criterion of success. One had to keep up with 
one’s neighbor. The standard of living consisted more in the possession 
of things than in the attainment of culture, and this is so to a large extent 
in America to-day. 


Now just as the business class imitated the gentry, and in a manner 
put on their culture from the outside, so the masses to-day strive to imi- 
tate the successful business man, to dress like him, to lay emphasis on 
what he has, and so forth. Certain psychologists recently made a study of 
the number of children who attend high school. The children whose par- 
ents were members of learned professions were found to outnumber many 
times those whose parents belonged to the artisan class, whose incomes 
were practically identical with those of the professional class. This means 
that a very large proportion of the masses even when their material stand- 
ard of living is raised, does not insist upon education. The tendency is 
rather to spend money for imitations of the things the rich have. Thus, if 
Babbitt’s rides in a Stutz or Rolls Royce, Henry Dubb wants a Ford. If 
Babbitt’s daughter wears a sable coat, Henry’s daughter must have a coat 
of dyed cat fur. If the boss buys a player piano, Henry must have a 
twenty-five dollar victrola. Both play jazz. If the tired business man 


291 


must have his cabaret, the tired worker goes to a movie. Neither insists 
on a very high standard of entertainment. Babbitt takes his vacation in 
Atlantic City and Henry Dubb week-ends at Coney Island. Both places 
are very much alike. Both Babbitt and Henry agree on despising “ high- 
brows.” Both can, without serious feeling of deprivation, get along with- 
out even a bowing acquaintance with the cultural values of civilization. 


This means that even with a general increase in per capita wealth 
the real standard of living may be on the decline. A community 
much poorer than ours may very easily have a higher standard. We 
are to a large extent content with a general shoddiness and spiritual 
cheapness which a more fastidious community, even though living 
in what we should call great poverty, would not endure. This 
accounts for much of the ugliness and tawdriness of American life. 
It is seen in our journalism and in our literature. Just compare the 
literary style of Jonathan Edwards with that of the Reverend Billy 
Sunday. I do not agree with either of these gentlemen, but I find that 
Edwards had a poise and grace, a delicacy and refinement, a nobility 
of spirit which one very seldom sees in the writings of our con- 
temporaries. Professor Henry Seidel Canby, of Yale University, in a re- 
cent article in the New York Evening Post, says: 


“Some fine morning our American will look at his face in the 
mirror of a new book and say: I am getting tawdry; I am small- 
minded; I am vulgar. Who will save me from a condition already 
uncomfortable and likely to be unfashionable! And, then, if there 
are real aristocrats who can write, their moment will have come. 
But their task will not be easy. They will have to popularize such 
unpopular things as leisure and obstinacy and skepticism and respon- 
sibility. They will have to attack current conceptions of happiness 
and success. They will have to defend the past without illusion and 
describe the present without sentimentality. They must know how 
both to love and to hate.” 


We have a further illustration in the type of hero which the 
populace worships. In today’s newspapers there are accounts of the 
death of two well-known Americans, Mr. Charles Murphy of Tammany 
Hall and Dr. G. Stanley Hall of Clark University. I have no com- 
ment to make concerning Mr. Murphy’s career, either of praise or of 
blame; but the American worship of mere power and success is seen 
in the fact that the news of his death has been printed in large headlines, 
and for days the front pages of the Metropolitan papers have been full of 
the stories of his life. Dr. Hall was one of the two or three most 
eminent scholars in America. He probably did more for the advance- 
ment of psychology than anyone in this country, with the exception 
of William James. Yet the notice of his death appeared on the eighth 
page in a little account of a few inches. I think this contrast throws 
some light upon our standard of living so far as values are concerned, 
and I should say that here we are, on the whole, on the decline. 


I have not the time for adequate discussion of some of the other 
trends in modern civilization. We must be content with brief men- 
tion of them. There is religion. If we compare religion to-day with 
religion in the middle ages, we note a contrast. I am not an apologist 


292 


for religion, but it must be said that religion does not occupy the 
place in men’s lives that it once did. Religious institutions no longer 
command the respect of men as they once did. They no longer attract 
to the clergy the type of scholarship they once did. Religious beliefs 
are not held with the same implicit faith as they once were. I am 
sure that an unbaised view of the facts will lead us to say that we 
are decidedly on the downward curve so far as religion is concerned. 


The same is true of government, though in a different way. Govern- 
ment to-day appeals to popular imagination. We are still in the political 
epoch of history. There has been much talk about the progress of gov- 
ernment. For the most part, this progress has consisted in two things. 
First, the extension of the functions of government to matters which have 
hitherto been left to private enterprise. Second, the extension of the fran- 
chise, with the effect that government takes on more and more the charac- 
ter of direct democracy. That is, government becomes more and more 
representative of the mediocre man at the very time when it is attempting 
tasks which are necessarily difficult. The total result is a loss in states- 
manship, a tendency to substitute passing fancy for political principles, 
a tendency toward coerciveness, restrictive legislation and quixotic and 
ill-considered reform movements. At the same time, the intellectual levet 
of the personnel to whom the tasks of government are entrusted has sadly 
declined. The influence of the lobby is greater than ever before. The 
legislative branch of our government, both state and national, is notoriously 
undependable and insincere. Huge majorities in both houses, in order to 
gain the support of well organized self-seeking minority groups, have again 
and again supported measures so ill-advised that most of those who voted 
for them did so hoping that they would meet defeat at the hands of others 
more sincere and courageous than themselves. Corruption in office extends 
to some of the very highest positions in the government. It is probably 
not an exaggeration to say that government to-day is at the lowest level 
it has reached in a century. 


In morals there is a tendency toward greater conformity and ele- 
mental decency. In some respects, open prostitution is no longer so flag- 
rant as formerly. Drunkenness was on the decline some years before the 
Eighteenth Amendment was enacted. And doubtless there are other in- 
dications of change for the good. But there is another tendency also. [I 
do not refer here to the greater freedom which characterizes the present 
generation, for I believe that in this freedom there is a decided moral 
gain notwithstanding the fact that many conventions are disregarded and 
many prudish persons horrified. I regard the “flapper” as one of the 
most sincere moral reformers among us. What I refer to is precisely the 
thing which our professional moralists are attempting to achieve: the sub- 
stitution of external control for personal responsibility; the removal from 
the individual of the need for choice between good and evil and the placing 
of it in the hands of government officials. Hence the growing preponder- 
ance of deference to authority over private judgment. Hence, also, an 
increase in furtiveness and hypocrisy, a cessation of original thinking 
and creativeness in moral endeavor, an undue influence given over 
to unqualified and amateur meddlers, a removal of temptation which gives 
fools an advantage in the struggle for existence, and hence is positively 
disgenic. We are, therefore, tending to formalize the moral interest, to 


293 


make it a matter of rules instead of a consideration of ends; and this means 
that morals are already on the decline. 


Finally, let me say a word about education. There are probably more 
people who have a smattering of knowledge than ever before, but the 
difficulty is that these people think they have “ got” an education. The 
idea prevails that education is something you go to school or college for 
and bring home in some sort of invisible package which most people lay 
upon the shelf and never look at again. In extending education to such 
large numbers, the general standard has been lowered. Of course, there are 
highly trained professional scholars. But the mental level of the average 
college graduate is probably lower than that of the university student of 
two or three centuries ago. As an illustration, let us take the standard 
of scholarship required for a doctor’s degree. In Erasmus’s time it was 
necessary for a student to have a thorough command of the classics before 
he could even receive his bachelor’s degree, and the Universities of 
Louvain and Paris required twelve years of study beyond this before he 
might be honored with the degree of doctor of divinity. I know men to- 
day who have this degree and yet can scarcely read and write. Scholar- 
ship, aside from science and philosophy, and in the sense that scholarship 
means knowledge of letters, has not made great progress. 


Now let us sum up what we have said and see in what direction 
progress is tending. In mechanics, in industrial organization, in science, 
and in the general possession and distribution of wealth, the curve is up- 
ward. In the cultural values of civilization there is a general decline. 
Now it is in these last that the mass as mass has had an influence, such 
as it did not have in former times, and this means that in all lines of 
activity where the average man exerts an influence the effect has not been 
so much a rise of the mediocre man as a mediocritization of culture. In 
other words, democracy tends to vulgarize and cheapen everything tt 
touches. Now if we consider all these present trends in their relation to 
one another, we see that the development of science and organization and 
machinery mean that we are progressively gaining power; for all these 
things mean power—power over nature and power over other men. This 
is the main result of progress in our day and it is valuable. It tends to 
transform all the relations of men both to nature and to one another, 


If power can be wisely directed, toward well-considered ends, we may 
feel that the progress in the directions which I have indicated is a real 
gain for human life in general. But the ability to choose these ends, that 
is, to create value, depends upon something that cannot be given us by 
mere accumulation of power. It demands an interest in that which is 
qualitative and not quantitative. It consists of acts of choosing, which 
must be guided by consideration for the cultural values of civilization. 
The end and aim of every civilization is cultural, and without a keen ap- 
preciation of such an aim civilization must decline. Now it is precisely in 
this capacity for appreciation that we have seen a decline rather than an 
advance Ina word, to answer the question, in what direction is progress 
moving? I should say, taken as a whole, it is moving in the direction of 
a standardized and mechanized order of life in which man as mass—that 
is, undifferentiated mass, or mediocrity—becomes dominant, without that 
degree of culture which in all times has enabled men to give to life a 
meaning. Perhaps it would be an exaggeration to say that we are tending 


294 


to become highly efficient barbarians. But certainly the organization of 
power, along with the tendency to intolerant mass action, shows very little 
respect for quality. Dictatorships may be set up in the name of the 
masses in which there is efficiency and love of power, but in which there 
may be no real community. In other words, there is a tendency toward 
ruthlessness and sheer power of numbers, a regimentation of vast hordes 
often directed by a desperate minority. We see this in Russia in the dic- 
tatorship which has been set up in the name of the proletariat; we see it 
in the Fascisti movement in Italy, in the dictatorship in Spain. In our 
own country, it is evident in such movements as Fundamentalism, Prohibi- 
tion, the Ku Klux Klan and various so-called reform movements. 


What Will Our Progress Make of Us? 


This leads us to the question, What shall we be like when we attain 
the ends toward which we are moving? Of course, no one can tell, be- 
cause the unforeseen may always happen. New creative forces may be 
liberated in directions which we cannot predict. But it is safe to say that 
society as a whole is moving in the direction of the type of man who re- 
ceives most consideration and whose dilemmas set the standards of value. 
That man to-day is the mediocre or sub-mediocre type, the “ low-brow.” 
We see his influence everywhere. It is to protect him against his own 
characteristic temptations that laws are made. It is in the attempt to please 
him that the wireless telephone, a splendid piece of mechanical progress, 
so frequently becomes devoted to banalities. In fact, the quality of the 
average radio-program illustrates what I have to say. 


It is because the motion picture has to appeal to the same type of man 
that the “ movies” are what they are. The same holds true of jazz, and 
politics, and journalism, and the Chautauqua. If this sort of thing con- 
tinues long, aided as it is by our quantity production methods and general 
tendency to standardization, this is what we shall be like: Our whole life 
will be on the level of a Ford factory; our religion Billy Sundayized; our 
lecture platform Bryanized; our morals Sumnerized; our literature writ- 
ten by the Harold Bell Wrights and Walt Masons; our social life a rotary 
club. We shall be globe-trotters, without the spirit of cosmopolitanism; 
newspaper readers but illiterate; high school educated without culture; 
gregarious without sociability ; political without statesmanship ; comfortable 
without elegance or poise or grace. 


The question is then, is it possible to control progress? It is not pos- 
sible for the mass as a whole to control progress, for progress is created 
by the few. But it ts possible for somebody to control it. In fact, it has 
always been the special task of somebody to control it, down to the pres- 
ent time. The trouble with progress to-day is that no one controls it. 
The mass is trying to control it. If we are to avoid the inane condition 
I have tried to describe, an increasing number of people must dare to stand 
out against our prevailing standards of mediocrity. They must take upon 
' themselves the task of creating progress in those very things in which 
to-day, because of the influence of the mass, there is a decline. I do not 
mean that we should deliberately wrest from the majority the right to 
have any say about the cultural values of civilization. I do 
not believe in a dictatorship of any kind. But I do _ believe 
that the world is all wrong when wise men are obliged to submit to the 


Pao he 


ways of foolish men. There must be a conscious effort to keep alive the 
love of beauty and truth. I do not mean a sentimental love like that of 
“ Hermione and her little group of serious thinkers.” I mean that it is 
possible to conceive of a world the civilization of which is such that a 
Socrates, an Aristotle, a Cicero, a Montaigne, an Erasmus, and an Emer- 
son, would feel at home in it. The truly educated man knows what that 
world would be and he must stand up for it, and never compromise the 
ideal of it in order to gain favor with the crowd. 


For in the end, even the multitude cannot stand too great a vulgariza- 
tion of value. As a matter of fact, the average man is always seeking to 
get away from himself and from the very drab and inane order of life 
which his own ways create. Again, there must be kept alive a sense of 
human worth. There is much said about this to-day, but most men mean 
by it the perfectly obvious fact that every human life has value for the 
man who lives it. But aside from this subjective point of view, to say that 
that value is equal is untrue. There can be no real sense of human worth 
unless there is a keen appreciation of the fact that some men are by na- 
ture spiritually superior to others, and have the natural right and duty to 
determine the ends and values of civilization. This is their true social 
function and they do not need to be elected to office to perform it. If 
we ignore this distinction of worth among men, as there is a tendency to - 
do to-day, we deny that any human achievement or virtue has value. 


As I have said before, we conceive of progress as something which 
moves along on a horizontal plane toward a goal which all men are to 
share alike as if the race were all marching along the road toward some 
ideal social order. This is not a correct picture. The line of progress in 
everything is vertical, not horizontal. It consists precisely to the distance 
which some men may rise spiritually above others, just as the evolution of 
the race consists in the fact that mankind as a whole is on a higher plane 
than the apes. The progress of the world, therefore, consists in the very 
same things as do the spiritual values—in the superiority of some men over 
others. This is not a popular idea. But it is nevertheless true. And 
thoughtful people in all classes are beginning to recognize it. 


Finally, we must keep alive the spirit of liberalism. This is one of 
the rarest things in the world and one most easily lost. Without it, our 
tendency toward a standardized and mechanized world means that we are 
running head-on into tyranny. Human nature cannot permanently stand 
tyranny. This has been proved again and again, whether that tyranny 
exists in the name of God or king, or of the proletariat or the democratic 
majority, or of patriotism; whether it be a tyranny of capitalism, or of 
prohibition or of bolshevism. Tyranny crushes the heart of man, enslaves 
the noble spirit and makes of the ignoble a sychophant and a sneak. It 
gives some men power to interfere with the behavior of others in matters 
that for the common good and for the self-respect of all must be decided 
by each for himself, even at the risk of deciding wrong. Tyranny gives the 
fool and the knave an advantage over the wise man and the honest man. 
It means always corruption and favoritism and inefficiency. Tyrants, 
whether crowds or kings, become mad with the sense of power, and for 
sheer love of it destroy themselves in the attempt to do the impossible. 
Tyranny makes itself ridiculous and its victims tragic. It always justifies 
its folly by taking refuge in the assumption of divine authority or moral 


270 


principle. The king rules by the grace of God; the mob by the precepts 
of Righteousness. 


The will to play the tyrant exists in every man. It is one of the deadly 
sins to which human nature is ever prone. Some men play the tyrant by 
wearing crowns; some by bullying their wives and children and employees ; 
some by a show of concern for the moral welfare of their neighbors; some 
by lording it over the fools whom they can convert to belief in and devo- 
tion for some dogma or movement; some by uniting with others in a 
crowd which in its protest against the feeling of inferiority gives itself 
airs and speaks in a holy tone and promises to itself, that is, its members 
that ‘-every knee shall bow ” to its idols. 


If we are to escape from tyranny, vulgarization, and standardization, 
if civilization is to be worth what it has cost in effort and struggle, if the 
vast accumulation of power which our age is coming to possess is to be 
directed toward ends of general human advance, there must be a rapid 
increase in the number of persons who know what liberal education means. 
It is that training which sets the mind free,—free from superstition, 
credulity, rationalization, and bad habits of thinking. There must be 
urbanity, capacity for suspended judgment, and self understanding, as 
well as “idealism ” and appreciation of value. 


It is in this sense that psychology has educational importance. I do 
not say that psychology is all; by no means. The student should, if he 
has not done so before, develop an interest in classic literature, in general 
philosophy and natural science. I can only hope that what has been said 
in these lectures may have brought him some help in the formation of new 
habits of thinking. I have not presented this subject as if psychology were 
a device for easy success nor as a receipt for manipulating our neighbors 
or deceiving ourselves with false optimism. Our aim has been to attain 
insight such as will enable us to know when we and others are merely 
rationalizing and when we are trying to solve real problems. By means 
of this insight we should be better able to see the true meaning of our 
behavior and to make some progress at least in self-control and in a 
knowledge of what is worth doing, which is, after all, the same as a 
knowledge of men. It is only with such knowledge, and under the volun- 
tary leadership of those who have it, that social progress can ever create 
or preserve the things which differentiate men from monkeys and dis- 
tinguish the civilized man from the savage. 


INDEX 


Abnormal mentality, 137 

Abnormal mental life, 75 

Abnormal mind, 51 

Abnormal psychology, 151 

Abreaction, 48 

Absent objects, 39 

Absent-mindedness, 151 

Absolute, 36 

Acquired modes of response, 271 

Acquired tastes, 253 

Acquisition, instinct of, 96 

Activity, 24, 25 

Activity level, 277 

Adjustment, 111; to environment, 10, 271; 
to future ends, 

Adler, Dr. Alfred, 53, 141 

Adolescent youth, 110 

Adolescence and religion, 214 

Aesthetic judgment, 252 

Affect, 104 

Afferent current, 22 

Alpha Test, 166 

Alpine race, 239, 241 

All-or-none principle, 99 

America, 195 

American Indians, 244 

Americanism, 194 

Amnesia, 151 

Analysis, 83 

Angell, James, 30 

Animal behavior, 18 

Animal psychology, 9, 270 

Anti-Saloon League, 199, 209 

Anxiety, 152 

Applied psychology, 10 

Arc, reflex, 20, 151 

Aristocratic ethic, 261 

Aristotle, 2, 7, 295 

Army intelligence tests, 247, 165 

Associationism, 31 

Attention, 147 

Auto-eroticism, 52 

Automatic behavior, 47 

Automatom theory, 64 

Autonomic system, 22 

Awareness, 

Axone, 19 

Axone fibres, 21 

Ayres, C. E., 96 


Benavior, 0,47, 10,20); 210; animal, 18: 
automatic, 47; criterion of, 210; psychol- 
ogists, 133 

Breuaviorism, J. B. Watson, 

Behaviorism, 62, 65, 66, 67, bt "967, 270,°2/03 
and consciousness, 273; and the me- 
chanistic theory, 278; and personality, 


277; as a method, 275; vs. introspection- 
ism, 

BreHAvior OF Crowns, THE, E. D. Martin, 
195, 203 

BEHAVIOR OF THE Lower ORGANISMS, H. S. 
Jennings, 38 

Behaviorists, 71, 184 

Bentham, Jeremy, 252 . 

Bergson, Henri, 36 

Berkely, 31 

Beta Test, 166 

Binet, Alfred, 162, 169 

Black race, 238 

Bodily activity, 10, 23, 36 

Bodily functions, 17 

So anace explicit, 82, 271; implicit, 


S202 
SBosssuiee5 
Brain, 21 
Breese, Burtis Burr, 271 
Brill, Dr. A. A., 53, 80, 141, 153 


Canby, Henry Seidel, 291 
Cannon, W. B., 8, 106, 108 
Cranial nerve center, 109 
“ Categorical Imperative,” 
Catharsis, 56 

Cell division, 18 
Censorship, 199, 248 
Cerebral cortex, 21 
Cerebro-spinal system, 20 
Ceremonialism, 80, 155 
Chamber of Commerce, 194 

Sa the, 51, 163; and self-consciousness, 


Childish habits, 214 

Chinese, the, 244, 283 

Choice, 34 

Choosing, instrument of, 142 

Christianity, 210 

Christian ethic, 257; piety, 254 

Church, 179, 216 

Cicero, 295 

Civilization, 177; cultural values of, 199, 
246, 263, 293; and race, 245 

ee distinction, 164; opinion, 194; struggle, 


Clifford, 64 

Cobb, Frank, 199 

Code of Justinian, 286 

Community, 143 

Compensation, 155; mechanism of, 55 
Complex of ideas, 52 

Compulsion, 155 

Compulsion neurosis, 54 

Conditioned reflexes, 24, 53, 77, 270 
Conduct, the ends of, 2 251 


252, 259, 262 


[297] 


298 


Consciousness, 5, 16, 30, 61, 65, 148, 274; 
James on, 274; always changing, 70; 
criticism of 64; four theories about, 62; 
stream of, 66; and behaviorism, 273 

Construct, the, 24, 26 

Co-operative Commonwealth, 285, 286 

Cooper Union, 50, 127, 203 

Creative thinking, 40 

Criterion of progress, 287 

Crowd behavior, 210; ideas, 203; opinions, 
195; propaganda, 202 iit politics, 227 ; 
psychology and leadership, 226 

Crowds, 144, 155, 185, 232, 260 

Cultural values of civilization, 293 

Culture, 177 

Curiosity, 94 

Custom, 255 


Darwin, Charles, 1, 89, 106, 122 

Day-dreams, 133 

Defense, mechanism of, 54 

Delusion of “reference,” 143 

aaa SE 106, 202,4.290% 
28 


Dentrites, 19, 21 

Determinism, 31,\ 42, 0/0 

Dewey, John, 29, 40, 47, 62, 71, 75, 91, 97, 
2103255) "'262 on thinking, 124 

Dictatorship, 294 

Deity, the idea of, 213; as Father, 214 

Distinction of worth, 248 

Divine revelation, 261 

Dogma, 218 

Donatello, 254 

Dreams, 48, 54, 133 

DreAMS, THE INTERPRETATION OF, 
Freud, 149 

Ductless glands, 108 

Dunlap, Knight, 46 

Durkheim, 180 


Nietzsche on, 


by 


Education, 4; progress in, 2933 and habit, 76 

Edwards, Jonathan, 291 

Efferent current, 22 

Ego, 136 

Ego-ideal, 143 

Ego-instinct, 137 

Ego-satisfaction, 144 

Emerson, 134, 295 

Emotions, 103; control of, 113; James on, 
104; James-Lange theory of, 105; 
McDougall on, 104; Watson on, 107; 
physiology of, 108; and evolution, 106; 
and psycho-analysis, 110; and roman- 
ticism, 103 

Empirical self, 33, 135 

Energy, 25 

Environment, 36, 79; adjustment to, 271 

Environmentalist argument, 

“ Epicritic ” response, 23 

Epiphenomenon, 64 


Equality, dogma of, 171 

Erasmus, 254, 293, 295 

Erogenous zones, 52 

Errors, psychology of, 154; in speech, 49 

Escape, 118, 129; mechanism of, 55 

Esoteric sects, 213 

Espinas, 180 

Ethics and psychology, 251; 
adjustment, 210 

Eugenists, 164 

Evolution, 19; and emotion, 106; and social 
science, 17 

Evolutionism and instinct, 89 

Evolutionist view in psychology, 9 

Experience, 6 

Explicit bodily movements, 271 

Explicit hereditary responses, 272 

Extenuation, virtues of, 135 

“Extroverted” type, 243 


Faculties of the Soul, 31 

Family, 214 

Family image, 243 

Fascisti, 203, 294 

Father image in religion, 214 

Fear, 155 

Fear response, 107, 272 

Ferguson, 245 

Fictions, 51, 142 

Filial attitude, 179 

First parent, sin of the, 215 

Fiske, John, 289 

Fixation, 150, 153, 216 

“ Folkways,” 255 

Follet, Miss Mary, 181 

Fore-knowledge, 66 

Forgetting, 49 

Free speech, 197 

French Revolution, 290 

Freud, Sigmund, 34, 45, 63, 91, 110, 133, 
148, 149, 150, 153, 276; ‘influence of, 37 

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF Psycno- 
ANALyYsiIs, Brill, 153 

Fundamentalists, the, 285, 


Gandhi, 237 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
ANALYSIS, Freud, 149 

Genetic method, 107 

Germany and the industrialists, 285 

Germ-plasm, 168 

Ginsburgh, M., 181 

Glands, 22; ductless, 108 

Glueck, Dr. Bernard, 142 

Gobineau, 240 

Seogteersis -Binet test for racial differences, 


Golden Rule, 261 
Goldenweiser, Alexander G., 245, 28 
Boca no absolute, 259; different teas of, 


and social 


To PsycHoe 


299 


Government, 232; by the masses, 224; 
progress in, 292 

Grant, Madison, 240 

Great Man Aanp His ENVIRONMENT, THE, 
William James, 239 

Gregarious instinct, 97 

Gregariousness, 94 

Group, 93, 185, 258 

Group mind, 69, 175, 181, 185; criticism of, 
183; a fiction, 175; McDougall on, 181 

Guiding line, 147 


Habits, 47, 75; James on, 81; collateral, 79; 
explicit bodily, 82; implicit bodily, 82; 
importance of, 75; new, 82; retention of, 
84; super, 81; as will, 75; and education, 
76; and social behavior, 258 

Hall, G. Stanley, 46, 51, 178, 268, 291 

Hallowell, Mrs. Dorothy, 244, 245 

Hammurabi, code of, 261 

Happiness, problem of, 111 

Heavenly Father, 215 

Hebrew religion, 209 

Hegel, 134, 181 

Heredity and intelligence, 168, 247 

Hereditary modes of response, 271 

Hero-myth, 214 

Hocking, Wm. E., 94 

Holmes, S. J., 247 

Homo-sexual, 52 

Human behavior, 26, 270 

Human Nature ann Conpuct, Dewey, 91 

Humanism, 41 

Humanists, the, 283 

Humanitarianism, 161 

Hume, David, 31, 135 

Huxley, Thomas H., 64 

Hypnotic state, 151 

Hysteria, 47, 149 


Idealogy, 256 

Ideas, complex of, 52, 69; no permanently 
existing, 32 

Identity, principle of, 34 

Implicit bodily movements, 271 

Implicit hereditary responses, 271 

Individual, the ultimate social reality, 176 

Individualism, 69 

Industry, organization of, 288 

Infant mortality, 247 

Infantile return, 129 

Infantile type of thinking, 157 

Inferiority, 246; feeling of, 111, 216 

Inferiority complex, 144 

Influence of Freud, 57 

Instinct, 75, 89; James on, 90; McDougall 
on, 92, 94, 153; Watson on, 95, 272; classi- 
fications of, 94; confusion in regard to, 
91; definition of, 94; ego, 137; gregarious, 
97; inhibition of, 98; in animals, 90; of 
acquisition, 96; of the herd, 177; of 


workmanship, 97; and evolution, 89; and 
natural selection, 90; and reflex, 92; and 
social psychology, 90; and theology, 89; 
and variation, 89 

Instinctive acts of children, 95 

Instrumentalism, 35 

Integration, 26 

“Intellect an instrument,’ James, 35, 39 

Intellectualism, 33, 41 

Intelligence in America, 165; and heredity, 
168, 247 ; 

Intelligence tests, 161 

Intelligence quotient, 162 

Interactionism, 63 

Interest, 70 

Interested spectators, 40 

INTERPRETATION OF Dreams, Freud, 149 

Introspection, 268 

Introspectionism, 71 

Introvert type, 243 

Ireland, Alleyne, 169 


James. Wii) 758) 9190) 16,120, 24.) Coss; 
61, 62, 64, 69, 70, 75, 76, 79, 85, 117, 137, 
138, 139, 153, 184, 239, 269, 273, 291; on 
consciousness, 274; on emotion, 104; on 
habit, 81; on instinct, 90; on morals, 258; 
on selection, 147; on spiritual self, 140; 
on thinking, 120 

James’ “ Briefer Course,” 39 

James-Lange theory of emotion, 105 

Jennings, Herbert S., 37 

Jewish people, the, 241, 242 

JouRNAL oF ABNORMAL PsyYCHOLOGY AND 
SoctaL Psycuotocy, 184 

Judgment about deeds, 254 

Jung, C. G., 108, 243 

Justifications, 144 


Kant, Immanuel, 2, 135, 259 
Kant and the “Categorical Imperative,” 


Kohs, Dr. S. C., 163, 164, 169 
Ku Klux Klan, 203, 246, 285, 294 


Laboratory conditions, 18 
Language habits, 69 

Lasalle, Ferdinand, 227 
Leadership, 232; in politics, 226 
Learning, the psychology of, 76 
Legislation, eugenic significance of, 248 
Liberalism, 200, 295 

Libido, 52, 143 

Lippman, Walter, 191, 195 
Living cell, behavior of, 17 
Living, the standard of, 289 
Loeb, Jacques, 8, 36 

Locke, John, 7, 31, 126 

Love, 107 


300 


Man, a choosing animal, 72 

Man-made scientific truths, 41 

Marx, Karl, 125, 227 

Marxian socialism, 268 

Masochism, 52 

Mass, 188, 231, 287, 294 

i Mass reaction,” 23 

Master morality, 256 

“Material me,” 139 

Materialism, 6 

Maze experiment, 78 

McCurdy, Dr. ee EON G7, 

McDougall, Wm., 1 25: 33, 371047; 02,491; 
168, 243, 245, 273; on emotion, 104: on 
the group mind, 181; on instinct, 92, 

Mechanism, 35, 37; of compensation, 55; 
of defense, 54; of escape, 55 

A eat theory, 25, 71; and behaviorism, 
278 


Medieval Christianity, 283 

Mediocrity, 294 

Mediterranean race, 239, 240 

Melancholia, 135 

Memory, 31, 76, 84, 85 

Memory “gaps,” 151 

Mental development, order of, 163 

Mental life, 10; abnormal, 75; a process, 15 

Mental testing, 161 

Mentality, abnormal, 137 

Merriam, Chas. E., 221 

Metaphysics, 30 

Method in psychology, 9, 269 

Michels, Robert, 222 

Middle Ages and progress, 286 

Mind, 5; no collective, 69 

Mob, 156, 296 

Montaigne, 295 

Morality not the essence of religion, 211; 
in meets cae 

Moral crusades, 

Moral suomi 51 252, 254 

Moral training, 79 

Morals, James on, 258; Nietzsche on, 256; 
progress in, 292; and religion, 209 

“ Mother fixation,” 155 

Mother picture, 198 

Motion Picture, 198 

Mutual adjustment, 185, 187 

Mystery oF ReEticion, Tue, E. D. Martin, 
207 

Mysticism, 184 

Mythology, 157 


Narcissism, 51 

Nation, 179, 186 

National Board of Review of Motion 
Pictures, 193, 202 

Nationalism, 177 

Natural science, 6 


Natural selection and instinct, 90 

Nerve-cells, 19 

Nerve center, cranial, 109; sacral, 109 

Nerve current, 25 

Nervous system, 20 

Neurones, 19 

Neurotic symptoms, 54 

New Testament, 213 

Newton, Isaac, 83 

Nietzsche, 134, 202, 210, 246, 252, on the 
“blond beast,” 240; on democracy, 286; 
on morals, 256 

Nordic race, 239, 242 


Object, 34 

Obscurantism, 158 

Observation, learning by, 78 

“ Oedipus complex,” 54, 152 

Old Testament, as a moral guide, 261; as a 
moral problem, 261 

Optimism of the masses, 283 

Order, 40 

Organic conception of society, 180 

Organism, behavior of, 15; unity of, 278 

Orientation, instrument of, 141 

Original tendencies, 80 

Ovid, 254 


Parallelism, 62 

Party opinion, 232 

Party platform, 228 

Pavlow, 8, 24, 79, 151 

People as mass, 188 

Periclean age, 286 

Perry, Dr. Ralph, 176 

Personality picture, 140, 147 

Personality and behaviorism, 2775 ae 
Watson on, 277 

Petrie, Flinders, 286 

Phobias, 112, 155 

Physical differences of race, 238 

Physiology, 15; of emotion, 108 

Plato, 2, 323 on “‘The’ Good,77Z52: 
Republic, *°103 

Plebeian, 262 

Pluralism, 69 

Politician, 225, 231 

Politics, 221; as a method of government, 
2352; and democracy, 230 

Political “ Boss,” 224 

Political life of America, 225 

Post hypnotic suggestion, 55 

Pragmatism, 33, 41 

PrnCme of identity, 34 

Principles, 42 

PRINCIPLES OF PsycHoLocy, James, 16, 20, 
24, 29, 34, 38, 69, 76 

Private judgments, 192 

Progress, 197; American faith in, 284; 
criterion of, 287 : direction of present day, 
287; how much can human nature stand, 


“ The 


301 


283; idea of, 283; law of, 286; mechanical, 
288; line of, vertical, not horizontal, 295; 
in education, 293; in government, 292; in 
morals, 292; in religion, 291; in scholar- 
ship, 287; in science, 289; of society, 285; 
and the Middle Ages, 286; and social 
psychology, 283; social, 197 

Prohibition, 248 

Prohibitionists, 128 

Projection, 156 

Propaganda, 195, 199, 200; is lies, 202; 
crowd and, 202; and public opinion, 191; 
and religion, 207 

Protests, 144 

Protestants, 211 

Protestant Churches in America, 209 

Protopathic response, 23 

Protozoan, 17 

Pseudo- psychology, 4 

Psycho-analysis, 45, 50, 
emotion, 110 

Psycho-analysists, 154 

Psychological difference of race, 238; prob- 
lem of race, 247 

Psycuotocy, R. S. Woodworth, 20 

Psychology a natural science, 6; abnormal, 
151; animal, 9, 270; applied, 10; educa- 
tional importance of, 296; the science of 
behavior, 62; evolutionist view in, 9; 
laws in, 9; method in, 9, 269; scope of, 
8; social, 10, 175; traditional, 267 

PSYCHOLOGY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A 
Beuaviorist, J. B. Watson, 133 

PsycHo.tocy oF Everypay Lire, Freud, 153 

Psycho-pathology, 9, 178, 207 

PsycHo-PaTHOLoGyY OF -EverypAy LIFE, 
Freud, 49 

Psycho-pathologists, 276 

Psycho-sexual life, 51 

Psycho-therapeutics, 148 

“ Public,” 191 

Public interest, 223 

Public opinion, 183, 232; and advertising, 
201; in America, 198; a caricature, 193; 
a criticism of, 198; and propaganda, 191; 
value of, 196 

Public self, 192 

Puritan philosophy of life, 254 


Race, 165, 237; real problem of, 246 
Race-consciousness, 237 

Race prejudice, 248 

Rage, 272 

Ralston, 245 

Random movements, 23 

Rank, Otto, 157, 214 
Rationalism, 36 

Rationalization, 55, 118, 128, 231 
Reaction pattern, inherited, 96 
Real, refuge from the, 142 
Reality, 33 


LOS elo sp oand, 


Reason, 117 

Recognition, 143 

Reconciliation, 215 

Redemption, 215; from sin, 212 

“Reference” delusion of, 143 

Reflex action, 22 

Reflex arc, 20, 151 

Reflex, conditioned, 24, 53, 77, 270; pere 
fecting of, 76; simple, 22, 66; and in- 
stinct, 92 

Regression, SOMES 7, 

Reintegration, ‘total, Soa 

Religion, 55; progress in, 291; institutions 
of, 209; the essential element of, 208; 
psychology of, 207; social aspects of, 
216; super-ethical inj elise and adoles- 
cence, 214; and morality, 211; and 
morals, 209; and propaganda, 207; and 
the unconscious, 207; and sex, 215; 
and social habits, 216 

Religious attitudes, 218 

Religious crowds, 210 

Religious ideas and sees Zlz 

Renaissance, 254, 283, 286 

Repression, 53) 80, 147, 153 

REPUBLIC, THE, Plato, 32. 103 

Republican party, 196 

Response, 20, 150; acquired modes of, 271; 


epicritic, 23; fear, LU/peac7 ce: inherited 
mode of, 113) 271; protopathic, Zoe 
specific, at ZotO. stimulus, 271 
Retentiveness, 85 

Reverie, 118 

Revott AGAINST CIVILIZATION, THE, 


L. Stoddard, 238 
Right and wrong, psychology of, 253 
es Tipe oF Cotor, Tuer, L. Stoddard, 
Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., 23, 93, 96 
Robinson, James Harvey, 124 
Roman Empire, 286 
Romantic love, 144 
Romanticism and emotion, 103 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 227 
Rotary Club, 194 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 2, 245 
Routine thinking, 127 
Rumors, 195 
Russell, Bertrand, 283 
Russia, 203, 231 


Sacral nerve center, 109 

Sadism, 

Salvation, 212 

Santayana, Prof. Geo., 200 

Scamp psychologists, 53 

Schiller, F.C. S:, 30 

Scholarship, progress in, 287 

Schopenhauer, 134 

Science, 7, 178, 197; characteristics of, 8; 
progress in, 289 


302 


Scientific logic, 275 

Scientific truths, man-made, 41 

Scientists, 61 

Selection, 34, 38, 147 

Self-consciousness, 133; and the child, 136 

Self, the, 135, 147; empirical, 135; feeling, 
137; idealization, 147; knowledge, 137; 
love, 34, 138; preservation, 94 

Sensations, 147 

Sex and religion, 215 

Shakespeare’s Othello, 285 

Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 254 

Shaw, Bernard, 183, 251 

Simple reflexes, 22, 66 

Sin, 218; and redemption, 215 

Situation as a whole, 26 

Slave morality, 256 

Social adjustment and ethics, 210 

Social behavior, 155, 186, 233; and habit, 
258 

Social environment, 187 

Social “mind” not a “thing,” 178 

Social order, 256 

Social progress, 197 

Social psychology, 10, 175, 246, 248; and 
progress, 283 

Social self, 33, 139 

Social theories, 2 

Socialist Party, 222 

Society, 178, 186, 187; a sort of family, 
178; as God, 187; not a thing, 70; organic 
conception of, 180; progress of, 285 

Society for the Prevention of Vice, 254 

Socrates, 117, 255, 295 

Solving problems, 68, 118 

Soul, 5, 30, 31 

Specific response, 21, 23 

Speech, errors in, 49 

Spencer, Herbert, 7, 15, 20, 106, 179 

Spinal cord, 21 

Stimuli, 147 

Stimulus, 20; delayed response to, 150 

Spiritualism, 31 

Spiritual self, 140 

StyPanl 210 

St. Thomas Aquinas, 7 

Standardization, 296 

Stoddard, Lothrop, 168, 233, 240 

Stream of Thought, 69 

Stereotypes, 195 

Structure, 19 

Struggle for existence, 65 

Sublimation, 157 

Substance, 31, 36 

Substitution, 156 

Sumner, Prof. Wm. G., 197, 255 

Sunday, Rev. Wm., 291 

Super habits, 81 

Syllogism, 122 

Symbols, 40, 49, 213 

Sympathetic system, 20, 109 


Synapses, 21 


Taboo, 81 

Temperament, 153 

Terman, Dr. Lewis M., 163 

Test for racial difference, 244 

Theology, 208; and instinct, 89 

THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS, 
Veblen, 290 

Thinker, types of, 198 

Thinking, 82, 117, 231; Dewey on, 124; 
James on, 120; Watson on, 123, 273; and 
purpose, 123; about ourselves, 133, 191; 
creative, 40; infantile type of, 157; kinds 
of, 118; objective, 158; problem solving, 
120; routine, 127 

Thorndike, E. L., 119 

Thought, 184; continuous, 70; no imper- 
sonal, 69 

Tocqueville, de 195 

Tolstoy, 215 

TorEM AND Tazoo, Freud, 150 

Trauma, 153 

Trial-and-error thinking, 119 

Trotter, Dr. W., 47, 97, 177 

Truths, 41, 123 

Type of man, 294 

Tyranny, 295 


THE, 


Unconscious, the, 50, 63, 157; Freud on, 
148; behavior, 147; impulses, 49; in 
Behavioristic terms, 150; influence on 
behavior, 152; and religion, 207 

Ultimate realities, 32 

Universal judgment, 185 

“ Unstriped ” muscle tissue, 22 


Variation and instinct, 89 
Veblen, T., 98, 290 

Virtue, 259 

Virtues of extenuation, 135 
Vulgarization of value, 295 


Watson, John B., 8, 9, 20, 23, 62, 75, 76, 
82, 84, 93, 133, 269, 271, 272, 273, 2763>0m 
emotion, 107; on instinct, 95, 272; on 
personality, 277; on thinking, 123; and 
the aim of psychology, 275 

Wealth, per capita, 291 

Weber, 3 

White, Dr. Wm., 53 

Wiggam, Albert, 168 

Writ To Be.teve, THE, Wm. James, 239 

Wilson, Woodrow, 229 

Wish invariably egotistic, 49 

Working class psychology, 194 

Workmanship, instinct of, 97 

Woodworth, R. S., 8, 20, 29, 62, 76, 78, 83 


Yerkes, R. M., 165 





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BEHAVIORISM 


JOHN B. WATSON 


Formerly Professor of Psychology and 
Director of the Psychological Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University 


LECTURES CONTENTS 
I. Wuat Is Benaviortsm? The old and new Psy- 
chology contrasted. 
II. How to Stupy Human Beuavior. Problems, 
methods, technique and samples of results. 

III. THe Human Bopy. What it is made of, how it is 
put together, and how it works. 

Part I—The structures that make Behavior possible. 

IV. THe Human Bopy. What it is made of, how it is 
put together, and how it works. 

Part I1—The glands in everyday Behavior. 
V. ArE THERE ANY Human Instincts? 
Part I—On the subject of talent and tendencies and 
the inheritance of all so-called “ mental” traits, 
VI. Are THERE Any Human INSTINCTS? 
Part I1—What the experimental study of the human 
young teaches us. 

VII. Emotions. What emotions are we born with—how 
do we acquire new ones—how do we lose our old 
ones? 

Part I—A general survey of the field and some ex- 
perimental studies. 

VIII. Emotions. What emotions are we born with—how 
do we acquire new ones—how do we lose our old 
ones? 

Part I]—Further experiments and observations on 
how we acquire, shift and lose our emotional life. 

IX. Our Manuat Hasits. How and when they start, 
how we retain them, and how we discard them. 

X. TALKING AND THINKING. Which when rightly un- 
derstood goes far in breaking down the fiction that 
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XII. Personaritry. Presenting the thesis that our person- 
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Pre heys 


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INFLUENCING 
HUMAN BEHAVIOR 


BY 


H. A. OVERSTREET 


Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy, College of the City of New 
York. Lecturer, New School for Social Research 


CONTENTS 
PART ONE: INTRODUCTORY TECHNIQUES 


CHAPTER 
I. THE KEY PROBLEM: CAPTURING THE 
ATTENTION 


II. THE APPEAL TO WANTS 


III. THE PROBLEM OF VIVIDNESS 


IV. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EFFECTIVE SPEAKING 


V. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EFFECTIVE WRITING 
VI. CROSSING THE INTEREST DEAD-LINE 


VII. MAKING IDEAS STICK 


PART TWO: FUNDAMENTAL TECHNIQUES 
VIII. How To CHANGE PERSONS: THE ENTER- 
ING WEDGE 


. THE BUILDING OF HABITS: ASSOCIATIVE 
‘TECHNIQUES 


OuR UNCONSCIOUS FABRICATION HABITS 

. THE PROBLEM OF STRAIGHT THINKING 
DIAGNOSING THE PUBLIC 

. TRAINING THE CREATIVE MIND 
CONFLICT AND INVENTION 

. THE TECHNIQUE OF HUMOR 

. THE INDIVIDUAL AND HIS WorRLD 





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Lecture 
J. 


PSYCHOLOGY 


What It Has to Teach You About Yourself and Your World 
BY 


EVERETT DEAN MARTIN 
Director, The People’s Institute 


A complete outline of Psychology which ‘‘relates the new science of 
the mind to common problems of the hour.’’——The New York Times. 


CONTENTS 

What Psychology really is—Its Uses and Abuses. 

Psychology and Physiology—A Study of Reactions. 

Psychology and Philosophy — The Place of 
William James. 

What Psychologists think about Consciousness. 

The Fatality of Habits. 

Human Nature and the Problems of Instinct. 

Man and his Emotions. 

A Lecture on How We Think. 

The Value of the Fictions We invent about 
Ourselves. 

The Unconscious and its Influence upon Human 
Behavior. 

The Significance of the Intelligence Tests. 

Is there a Group Mind? What governs the Behavior 
of People in Society. 

The Psychology of Propaganda and Public Opinion. 

The Psychology of Religion. 

Are there Psychological differences of Race. 

The Psychology of Politics. 

Ethics in the Light of Psychology. 

Psycho-analysis—What Freud and his Followers 
have done to Psychology. 

Behaviorism. — The Latest and Most Debated 
Development. - 


How much Progress ean Human Nature Stand?, 





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